Someone Else's Heart
by nicalyse
Summary: He's the guy who gets her off, not the guy she talks to about things that matter. She made it really clear that this thing they're doing is just friends having sex.  A follow-up to This Is How It works, though you needn't have read that one.
1. Chapter 1

They don't _sleep _together.

They have sex. A lot of sex, and he isn't deluding himself about what that means. But it doesn't matter which of their houses they're in, which of their beds (if they're in a bed at all), they always fall asleep separately, alone. Puck in his bed, Rachel in hers. Actually sleeping together wasn't a part of their arrangement; Puck thinks it probably crosses the imaginary boundaries Rachel has set for this thing they're doing, and he isn't going to be the one who brings it up, especially not when she's slipping her dress over her head to go home.

He thinks it might make him look like he wants her more than she wants him.

(He does.)

It only bothers him because he's totally into middle of the night, half-asleep sex. You know, when you fall asleep with a chick, and sometime before dawn, you wake up just enough for that slow, lazy, quiet sex that's like, weirdly satisfying.

He's resigned himself to not having that with Rachel, but it's probably better that way. The more time they spend together with clothes on...

It's just better that they don't.

* * *

He's working shipment at Sheets 'n Things two days a week, plus a couple of regular shifts, which means that he goes in at seven a.m. to unload the truck and is done by eleven. It's cool, because it's easy and he doesn't have to deal with customers or wear a stupid apron, but it sucks a little, because, you know, seven a.m. He isn't letting it cramp his style though; he does what he has to do, and most afternoons he heads home to crash for a couple of hours before he finds something better to do with his time. (Like Rachel.)

Today the shipment was light, so Mr. Schue's ex tells him and Tommy, the other guy who works these mornings with him, to cut out as soon as they're finished with the promise to fuck the computerized payroll system and pay them for the full shift, and Puck's totally taking advantage of that shit. He hits the drive-thru at Starbucks and gets an iced black coffee and and an iced soy chai latte thing and drives over to Rachel's. Her dads are as devoted to their schedules as Rachel always was to hers (at least now Puck knows where she gets it), so they're always, always out of the house by 8:10 on weekday mornings. He'll wake her up and convince her to let him get her off (see, he's not totally selfish), then he can go home and nap until Abby nags him out of bed.

The street she lives on is sort of narrow, and the guy across the way has parked both of his cars on the street to mow the lawn without getting grass all over them, so Puck pulls into the driveway behind Rachel's little silver car instead of at the curb like usual. He knows that they leave the back door unlocked habitually, so he lets himself in the gate and walks around the side of the house with both of their drinks in one hand, thinking, not for the first time, how ridiculous it is that they're obsessed with locking the front door when they never bother with the back one.

He can hear the shower running when he gets to the top of the stairs, and he's disappointed that he won't get to wake her up for a split second. Then he thinks about Rachel being naked in that shower, her hands gliding over that tight little body covered in soap suds, hair slicked back against her head.

He's totally getting in that shower with her.

She's singing quietly, that fucking Ke$ha song that's all over the radio that he knows she hates, but also kind of loves a little bit, and it makes him grin as he puts the cups on her desk, toes off his shoes, and steps through the open bathroom door. He's half-hard just thinking about her in there, water streaming over her naked body...fuck, she's hot.

And loud, which he's reminded of when he pulls back the curtain and she let's out a fucking ear-splitting scream.

"Fuck, Rach!" he cries, putting his hands over his ears as her voice echoes off the tiles. He isn't just exaggerating: That shit hurts. "It's me, it's me!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she demands, throwing her yellow body pouf at him. It smells like citrus, lemon or grapefruit or something, and leaves a wet, sudsy spot on the front of his shirt before falling to the bathmat. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" She looks furious, one hand pressed over her heart on her bare chest.

"No!" he insists, trying to keep his eyes on her face. It's fucking difficult since she's, you know, naked. He decides to take a chance and pulls his shirt over his head, dropping it to the floor. "I just wanted to see you."

She huffs out a breath, but her gaze drop down to his stomach and he knows he has her. He watches her eyes as he unbuckles his belt and steps out of his pants and boxers, sees her swallow when she sees that he's half-hard for her. She says his name when he steps over the edge of the tub, wraps her hand around his length and begins stroking as he tugs the curtain closed again before turning to kiss her hard, his tongue moving against hers, tasting her immediately instead of easing into it the way she usually likes.

Her heart is beating fast when she feels his fingers teasing between her legs, and while it was because he scared her, now it's because she wants him. She wants to be angry - she is angry - she _will _be angry later - but right now she just wants him to stop teasing and make her come like she knows he can. So she tells him, murmuring it against his ear, letting her teeth graze the lobe because she knows it'll make him do what she wants. He brings one of her legs up, wrapping his arm around it to keep it at his hip when he slips into her her, and she lets out a breath because no matter how many times they do this, it always feels so good when he's finally inside her.

"Fuck, baby."

Something about this is ridiculously fucking hot, and it isn't just because Rachel likes her water almost scalding. He feels like he's going to come basically the minute he's inside her, and if they hadn't done this before, he'd be embarrassed by how quick he knows it's going to be, and even so, he'll make sure she goes first and hard to make up for it. He's got her pressed against the wall, supporting most of her weight (as if she's heavy) with his body, and her head is tipped back, her lips parted so she makes these little noises that make him half-crazy. He slips his hand between them, rubbing his thumb against her nerves and gritting his teeth when she comes around him because he's just realized that he isn't wearing a condom, and he's pretty sure she'll lose her fucking mind if he comes inside her.

Even though she's resting her forehead against his shoulder and breathing hard, her hand comes down to wrap around him when he pulls out, and she only strokes twice before he's coming hard on her thigh, the water sluicing over their bodies washing away the stickiness before either of them is really aware of it.

"Oh my god," she breathes against his neck. She's shivering, but she's not sure if it's because the water has cooled to lukewarm or because of what they just did. His hands are on her waist when he pulls away; she's glad because she doesn't trust her legs when they feel this rubbery.

"Fuck," he mutters, and she knows that's his way of agreeing with her. She leaves him alone in the shower, telling him that there's a towel on the counter before stepping back into her room, pulling the bathroom door closed behind her. She feels a little muddled as she gets dressed, and it doesn't help when Noah steps out of her bathroom in jeans and nothing else.

"Where's your shirt?"

"Wet," he answers. "Hung it on your towel rack." She nods, looking in the mirror as she smooths moisturizer over her face. He watches her, lets his eyes linger on the flush on her chest when she starts pulling a comb through her hair. She gets that flush whenever she gets worked up. It isn't hot, exactly, but he finds it endearing. (Dangerous thought.) "I got you a latte," he tells her when he sees the drinks sitting there, neglected, on her desk. He'd forgotten about them somewhere between her attempting to burst his eardrums and and fucking her into the shower tiles.

She smiles at him, just a little, when she takes the cup. "Thank you." Then she turns her back on him again, grabbing a bottle of lotion and sitting on her vanity stool to massage it into her skin.

So maybe she doesn't always feel the need to fill silence with words the way she used to, but this is different. This is her not talking to him. "Are you pissed at me or something?"

"Noah, you just showed up unannounced and nearly scared the life out of me," she tells him flatly, not bothering to look up from her legs. "While I was in the shower."

"I brought you a latte," he points out, then smirks wickedly. "And I made you come."

"What if my fathers had still been home?"

He gives her a look as he drops down to sit on the edge of her bed behind her. "Seriously? You really think I would've fucked you in your shower if your dads were home?" He scoffs when she raises her eyebrows at his reflection in the mirror. "Come on, Rachel. Don't be stupid."

She rolls her eyes when she turns on the stool to face him. "Fine. But we need to set up some rules."

"Rules? We've been doing this for weeks without needing rules."

"Regardless, I think it's time we institute some. Starting with calling ahead before we show up at one another's houses."

Okay, so that one probably makes sense. Her dads keep a super-strict schedule on weekdays, but his mom definitely doesn't, and neither of them is interested in explaining what they are to their parents. He has no idea what she's told her dads about his presence in their house, but his mom has definitely asked about him spending so much time with Rachel. (He told her they were friends and it was none of her business, and she seemed to accept it. He knows she isn't stupid, but she actually trusts him, so whatever.)

He's kind of already accepted that they're going to get caught together by one of their parents (probably his mom) sooner or later, but maybe they can avoid that if they actually check in with each other or whatever.

"Fine," he agrees after he's considered it. "If you want to kill all the spontaneity, it's fine with me."

She scoffs a little, but she's smiling. "You're so full of it."

He leans forward, grabs the edge of her stool and pulls it so her legs are between his thighs. "You like it," he tells her, letting his hands rest on her thighs just below the hem of the denim shorts she's wearing. Her skin is warm and smooth beneath his fingertips and the lotion she put on smells faintly of honey.

"What's your rule?" she asks, trying to ignore how good his hands feel on her skin. The touch isn't sexual, so it shouldn't make her want to close her eyes. Then again, most of Noah's touches are somehow sexual. "I made one, so you should," she tells him when he looks at her strangely.

He shakes his head, looking down at his hands on her legs as he lets his fingertips slip beneath the hem of her shorts. "Rules are for suckers, babe. You come up with 'em, I'll break 'em."

She swallows hard when one of his thumbs grazes the inside of her thigh. "Condoms," she blurts, and the way he looks at her makes her laugh so hard that she covers her mouth. "I'm sorry," she finally manages. "It's just...I'm on the pill, but no birth control is foolproof, and I know that neither of us wants to deal with...that."

She isn't quite meeting his eyes, and he thinks that's bullshit after some of the things they've done, not to mention some of the things he's still planning on doing with her. (To her. Whatever.) She should be able to tell him something like this without being embarrassed or worrying that he's going to be pissed or whatever. He catches her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilts her head up until she's looking at him. "You're right," he tells her softly.

"I usually am," she quips, squealing a little when he snags her around the waist and pulls her onto him. Her wet hair brushes his shoulders as she repositions herself to straddle his thighs. "Incorrigible."

He leans forward to kiss her, because he hasn't done that enough today, tracing the seam of her lips with his tongue and pushing his fingers into the hair at the back of her head to hold her in place, the strands wet and cool against the back of his hand.

Sex with Rachel is fucking amazing. It's only been a few weeks since Sam and Quinn's wedding, but it's already better with her than it's been with anyone before. If he let himself think about it too hard, he'd probably make the connection between the sex and the fact that he's actually sort of into her, but there's no way he's going there. Their arrangement is purely sexual, strictly platonic, and he is not going to fuck with a good thing, so to speak, and risk losing it just because he might have fucking feelings.

He's tried proving himself before. He's tried showing girls that he'd be good for them, that he wants them and they should be with him, and he's not doing it any more. He's done with grand gestures, and he's decided that he's going to take the summer to just enjoy what he has without trying to get more.

And right now he has Rachel's tongue in his mouth, so he should probably stop fucking thinking so hard.

He lies back on the bed, his hands on her shoulders to keep her upright. "Ride me," he says, smirking when her mouth falls open. "C'mon, baby. I just did a bunch of heavy lifting at work," he reminds her. It's a lie, but she doesn't know that. "Y'know you like it."

"I _just _showered."

"I bet you're already wet." He brushes the side of her breast with his thumb, watches her bite her lip before she pulls away from him to stand and pull her tee shirt over her head. "Fuck yes."

* * *

She doesn't think about it too much, really. They see each other a few days a week, either with friends or alone in one of their bedrooms, and while they're generally naked if they're alone, they are still capable of just hanging out. They've been comfortable together for years, and while Rachel had initially worried that they would lose that if they slept together, the opposite has been true. She'd feared awkwardness, but there's an ease to their interactions that wasn't there before. (She's entertained the idea that any discomfort between them before was due to sexual tension, but she pushed that thought aside before she could think about it too seriously.)

And really, she's having too much fun to worry about it.

Most of their friends don't know what's going on, and she's completely surprised by it, partially because they aren't deliberately hiding it and partially because Noah isn't the most discreet person in the world, even when he isn't trying to be obvious. They aren't flaunting it, exactly, but they'd agreed that lying about it was silly. Their little group has been incestuous enough over the years that it isn't surprising that she and Noah have finally fallen into bed together. The thing is, no one seems to have noticed what's going on yet. It's only a matter of time before they do, but being in this little bubble of secrecy is oddly appealing.

It's only been a few weeks since she got home, but she keeps having to remind herself that a lazy summer was her idea, that she wanted this, that it isn't boredom, it's just her brain learning what it's like not to be buzzing with schedules and expectations and information. She's keeping up with ballet and her voice lessons to maintain her training, but otherwise she has enormous amounts of free time.

She can't be blamed for thinking that, under this particular set of circumstances, sex is, in fact, a productive use of her time.

* * *

When Tina started offering her 'Drunken Arnold Palmers', she should have known better. Sweet tea-flavored vodka is still vodka, and Rachel has always been a lightweight.

They've gathered at Mercedes' place to take advantage of the hot tub before the weather gets too hot to enjoy it. Sam and Quinn are back for the weekend, full of stories about their honeymoon in Maui and moving into their new apartment in Columbus, and everyone but Mike Chang is drunk or on their way. Rachel seems to be leading the pack, something that doesn't happen often. She prefers being tipsy all night to getting properly drunk; she likes to drink slowly and with some sense of restraint, and generally does, but sitting in the hot tub just made her so _thirsty_.

She's sitting between Noah and Kurt, and there are so many of them in the tub that the water is bubbling up nearly to her shoulders. A tiny part of her brain is going through the statistics on bacteria in hot tubs, but the rest of her brain is soaked in vodka and is completely distracted by the way Noah is grazing his fingers over her knee beneath the water. Plus, she's been sharing germs with these people, some more directly than others, for years, so she's just going to keep her mouth shut and have fun, so to speak. She's actually having a very heated discussion with Mike and Kurt about this year's contestants on _So You Think You Can Dance_.

She pouts when she realizes that her cup is empty, leans her head against Noah's shoulder and asks him if he'll get her a refill. He laughs, his hand sliding to the inside of her thigh beneath the bubbling water, and asks her if she thinks she should slow down.

It pisses her off instantly.

She glares at him for a moment before hoisting herself up and out of the water, grabbing one of the towels stacked in the wicker basket off to the side and wrapping it around her waist before stalking into the house and stomping across the kitchen to the makeshift bar set-up on the counter. She hears the sliding glass door open as she pulls the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge, and even though she knows it's Noah, she refuses to acknowledge him, focusing instead on pouring a measure of liquor into her cup.

"That's a fuckton of vodka, Rach," he says evenly. He's just leaning lazily against the counter beside her, his wet board shorts dripping on the tiles as he watches her. The jerk.

She screws the cap onto the bottle and puts it back with the others on the counter. "Despite what you may think, I don't believe I have had enough tonight."

"If you drink all that, you're gonna throw up." His voice is flat, and he holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender when she glares at him. "Fuck, do whatever you want. Drink yourself sick. Just don't expect me to hold your hair or take care of you tomorrow."

She rolls her eyes, topping off her cup with lemonade and taking a pointed sip. It's a little (a lot) strong, but there's absolutely no way she'll admit that to him. "You're an ass."

"Yup," he agrees easily. "But I thought that maybe you'd let me take you home and fuck you from behind if you were just a little drunk." She looks at him with wide eyes; she cannot believe he just said that to her. "But I won't get to do that if you're totally wasted."

Her drink is suddenly far less appealing, so she sits it on the counter and turns to face him. "The girls are all staying here tonight," she tells him quietly, reaching out to trace her finger along the skin just above the waistband of his shorts. She's thinking about what he said he wants to do to her. It's the one position she hasn't agreed to yet, not because she thinks it's degrading, but because she gets the strangest feeling, irrationally, she's sure, that he's going to say something offensive to her if she does agree. She has no reason to think that, but she does, even if she won't admit the reason for her hesitance to him. Or maybe it's just because she's never let anyone else hae her that way.

God, she's drunk.

He shifts, resting his hands flat on the counter on either side of her hips, boxing her in. "That sucks." Her hands are on his hips, and her fingernails dig into his skin a little when he whispers a significantly more explicit suggestion against her ear. She can feel him smirking against her throat when she gasps, and the towel around her waist falls to her feet before she's even realized that he's touching it. Suddenly, she's very aware that the blue bikini she's wearing is quite small, and Noah's fingers are teasing at the strings holding the bottoms together at her hip as his lips slide across her collarbone, his teeth just grazing the skin.

She starts when the sliding glass door opens again. "Whoa," Mercedes draws out as Noah takes a step back. "Did I interrupt something?"

Rachel presses her lips together and looks up at Noah. "Just reminding Rach that drinking herself to a blackout probably isn't a good idea," he says easily. It isn't exactly a lie. "I gotta piss," he announces, and she drops her eyes to the floor as he turns and walks away.

The kitchen is cool, but even though her skin is damp and the air conditioner is running, she's feeling a little overheated. She lifts her cup to take a gulp, nose wrinkling when she's reminded just how much vodka she poured. "Do you want some of this?" she asks Mercedes, not looking at her friend. "I made it way too strong."

"Rachel, what the hell was that?" Mercedes asks, and Rachel finally dares to look over at her friend, standing just inside the doorway with a towel wrapped around her body under her arms. "You and Puck?" The tone of her voice isn't judgmental, but Rachel isn't sure what to call it.

She reaches for another plastic cup (They're yellow instead of the more traditional and readily available red or blue, so she knows Kurt is responsible for their presence.), pouring half of her own drink into it even though Mercedes never responded. "We were just talking," she answers, topping off both of the cups with lemonade.

"You can't lie worth a damn, girl," Mercedes says flatly, crossing the room to stand at the counter. She takes the cup Rachel offers and sips. "His lips were on your neck."

Rachel corrects the girl mentally, because his lips were actually on her collarbone, but manages to keep her thoughts to herself. "It's really nothing, Mercedes." She realizes, much too late, that her towel is still in a pile on the floor and kneels to grab it, wrapping it back around her waist. She knows she look guilty, even though she doesn't think she has a reason to be.

"Are you guys...dating?"

"No!" she answers quickly. "We're just friends."

Mercedes smiles over the rim of her cup, and there's something wicked in her dark eyes. "With benefits?"

She doesn't _want _to laugh, but she can't help it. They couldn't expect to make it the entire summer without their friends figuring out what they were doing, and she's drunk enough at the moment not to care even a little bit. Somehow it makes sense that they were caught in a near-compromising position rather than just telling everyone. "Something like that."

"Is he as good as he says he is?"

She bites her lip as she considers the question. She isn't the most experienced girl around, having been with only three men, but she isn't a blushing virgin either, and Noah is certainly the best she's had. In the last few weeks, they've done things she hadn't even considered before, and he's drawn reactions from her body she didn't know she was capable of. "A good girl never kisses and tells, Mercedes," she finally says, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Mercedes snorts and shakes her head. "If you're having sex with Puck, there's no way you're a good girl," she says pointedly before dissolving into giggles.

* * *

Puck thinks he might miss the way things were before Mercedes caught him trying to untie Rachel's swimsuit bottoms in her kitchen. He'd spent the rest of the evening not touching Rachel while their friends gossiped and watched them. (Okay, maybe there was a little touching under the water, but nothing serious and no one noticed.) It's not that he's shy, because he's totally not, but he sort of likes that what they have is a little bit private. At least, it was. At one point, Kurt had followed him into the house when he'd gone to get another beer, fishing for details he'd insisted would stay "just between the guys." (Since Puck has known Kurt for years and, you know, isn't a moron, he'd kept his mouth shut. If Rachel wants to give details, it's her business, but he isn't going to talk about her like that.)

He knows Rachel was a little uncomfortable with the attention they were getting. Even after their little "encounter" in the kitchen (And he's pretty sure that before Mercedes came in, he'd convinced Rachel to give him what he wants.), she'd continued to drink pretty heavily, and he'll be surprised if he finds out that she didn't get sick after he left with Finn, Artie, and Mike. He's pretty sure that Kurt and Mercedes' insistent, if drunken, questioning and Quinn's knowing looks had a lot to do with it.

He wakes up a little before eleven on Saturday, or rather, is woken up when Abby pounds on the door (bless the deadbolt he installed), yelling something about his "lazy butt." He ignores her, even if he does get up, sending Rachel a text (_Sup, lush?_) before going to shower.

_Dying. Unless you have something helpful to say, I'm ignoring you._

All right, so he told her that he wasn't going to take care of her when she was hungover, but he's been there enough times that he figures he can do her a solid and at least take her some Gatorade, so he gets dressed and stops by 7-11 on his way to her house. Her dad opens the door when Puck rings the bell, tells him to go on up. Puck's pretty sure the dude grins when he sees the sports drink in his hand, so he figures her dads must know what she was up to the night before, and it's cool that they aren't all worked up about it.

He doesn't bother knocking on her closed door, just walks in. The room is dark, the shutters on her windows closed tight, and completely silent, which he's pretty sure he's never seen. There's always music playing or the TV is on or she's babbling about something, and it almost weirds him out until she makes this completely pitiful noise from where she's curled up on her bed, facing the doorway with her eyes closed. She isn't under the covers, just has her feet tucked under the quilt folded at the foot of the bed.

"Did you puke?" he asks, grinning when she makes the noise again. "You totally puked."

She opens her eyes just a crack, and it's hilarious that she manages to glare at him like that. "Stop," she groans. "I didn't. I think I'd feel better if I did."

He sits on the edge of her bed. "Stick your fingers down your throat," he suggests, shrugging when she glares again. "If it'll make you feel better." He wouldn't do it, but he's not a chick.

She pushes herself up so she's sitting back against the pillows. "You know how they tell you to put your foot on the floor if you lie down and the room starts spinning?" He nods. That shit works. "It doesn't work if you're already lying on the floor."

He snickers, remembering that she stayed the night at Mercedes' place, and hands her the Gatorade after twisting the cap open for her. She accepts it with quiet thanks. "You've been hungover before."

"Not like this." She's taking tiny, slow sips from the bottle.

"You know what you need?" She raises her eyebrows. "French fries. I mean, you really need a cheeseburger, but you're all vegetarian and shit, so fries'll have to work."

"Noah-"

He stands and shakes his head. "Nope, no arguing. Ass out of bed, let's go."

He ignores her protests about her stomach and her "not fit for public" t-shirt and half-drags her out to the truck, giving her his aviators when she complains about the sun. (They're way too big for her face and kind of make her look like a bug, and he knows it's fucked that he thinks that's cute.) He takes her to the place she calls "their" drive-in, destroys a double cheeseburger while she picks at an order of fries and keeps sipping Gatorade, and by the time they get back to her house, she admits that she feels better.

They spend the rest of the afternoon in her dark room, watching _The Hangover_ (she says it's appropriate) and making out a little. She tastes like orange, and he realizes that this is the first time in years that they've spent time alone together like this without one of them trying to take it further.

He doesn't hate it, even though he tries not to think about it too much.


	2. Chapter 2

"You know you just like having my sloppy seconds."

Rachel doesn't even argue; she's been through this before with Santana, both back when they hated one another and plenty of times since they've become friends. It's become a joke, one that's somehow funnier now that neither of them is dating Finn. (They've never been able to say, definitively, who was getting whose seconds. Rather, they've never been able to agree. Rachel maintains that he was his first.)

Her phone has been inundated with messages from both Santana and Brittany since Saturday morning when Mercedes and Kurt set off the Glee Gossip Mill (still clearly just as effective as it was in high school, even across a year and a couple thousand miles), but between her hangover and a big group dinner that night, she hadn't gotten around to responding to either girl. When she finished with her voice lesson Monday morning, she had a text from Santana that read _You're a fucking bitch for not calling me back_, and she knew her friend meant it, so she'd dialed Santana before she even started her car.

"Look, I don't care what Mercedes said," Santana is saying when Rachel slows at a stop light. "I do not believe that you agreed to be Puck's fuck buddy."

"That's incredibly crass, Santana, and I know Mercedes didn't put it that way."

She makes an impatient noise into the phone, or maybe it's disgust. "So you two are actually dating? Going out to dinner and holding hands and using schmoopy pet names?" Rachel can practically hear the smirk in her voice, and she thinks it's been far too long since she's gotten to see it. It's ridiculous that she finds inappropriate sarcasm endearing in so many of her friends. (And her sexual partner.)

"No."

"Then he's your fuck buddy, Babs."

"Honestly, I don't know why I'm your friend," Rachel says, exasperated by the entire conversation.

"Whatever," Santana answers dismissively. "You love me, and you owe me some details. Like, why Puck? It's not like you two have the most stellar history, and you're hot enough that you could find someone else to get you off on the regular if that's all you wanted."

Rachel decides that she deserves a frappuccino as a reward for having this conversation, so she takes a left instead of a right and heads towards Starbucks. "Why not Puck?" she counters. His nickname feels strange on her lips, and she thinks it's because she's been spending more time talking _to _him lately than talking about him. She rarely addresses him as Puck, and she rarely refers to him with their friends as Noah. The difference between his two personas is far less extreme than it used to be, but old habits die hard. "I already know him, I already trust him, and you of all people know that he knows what he's doing."

"Oh, he knows what he's doing," Santana agrees easily. "I'm sure what you're getting is better than what I got, and he was good back then." Rachel thinks that talking about this is far less awkward than she expected, perhaps less so than it should be. Then again, this isn't the first man they've both had, even if they've never discussed Finn. "It's just..."

It's strange for the girl not to just say what she's thinking. It makes Rachel nervous. "Just what?"

"Have you two ever been just friends? The way I remember it, there was always something going on between you. He liked you, you used him to make Finn jealous, he stood up for you when everyone was on your ass-"

"Including you," she interjects. They're friends now, but they hated each other for years. She's all but given up hope that Quinn and Santana will come to the same sort of peace; the girls tolerate one another, but nothing more. For example, Santana had been invited to the wedding, but only because everyone else from glee club had been, and it was really just a gesture. As far as Quinn was concerned, Santana wasn't welcome at her wedding. Rachel knew that was at least a tiny bit of the reason the girl hadn't come back to Lima for the summer, even if she wouldn't ever admit it.

"Including me," Santana agrees easily. "You aren't stupid, you know what I'm saying."

"Listen very carefully," Rachel says lowly. "Noah and I are friends who have sex, nothing more."

"Whatever you say, Rachel." She sounds like she doesn't believe it, or maybe like she's bored. It's hard to tell with Santana sometimes. "Hey, make my day better and tell me that you had sex at Ken and Barbie's wedding," she says quickly, making Rachel laugh.

"We didn't, but you know that I wouldn't tell you if we did."

Santana huffs into the phone. "You're boring," she declares. "I'm going to watch the hens on _The View_ peck at each other."

"It's good to know where I rank," Rachel laughs, and she's still laughing when Santana hangs up without saying goodbye. It's pretty standard, and it would infuriate her if anyone else did it, but somehow it's okay when it's Santana.

* * *

Her phone rings from where she left it on his dresser, but they're both naked and her lips are wrapped around his cock (and fuck, her mouth is amazing), so she ignores it and hums around him when he calls her baby. It isn't until later, when he's returned the favor (and pushed her over the edge twice) that she listens to the message, working on turning her dress right side out while she stands at the end of his bed in just a pair of white cotton panties patterned with hearts and a simple white lace bra. Puck isn't really paying attention, lying back against the pillows with the sheets pulled up to his waist and appreciating her ass, but then she sits down on the end of the bed all slowly and he thinks there must be something wrong.

She takes the phone down from her ear, holding it in her lap against the little pink dress. He waits for her to say something. "What's up?" he asks when she doesn't. She just shakes her head a little, and he gets a bad feeling, the kind of feeling you really don't want to have when you're naked, so he grabs his boxers and pulls them on before moving to sit next to her. "Rachel."

"Allie is dead," she says, her voice just barely above a whisper. "My roommate from this past year." She's taking these shallow breaths, looking down at her phone or her hands, he isn't sure, and she doesn't say anything for a long time. "There was a car accident or something, and she's dead."

He has no idea what to say to that. No fucking clue. Other than his grandad when he was six, Puck hasn't ever known anyone who died. He's also completely freaked out by the way Rachel is acting right now, totally still and quiet, just sitting on his bed in her bra and panties. Fuck, she's barely even breathing, and as much as he can't stand seeing a girl cry, he sort of wishes she would do something, anything, and he figures that's the most likely reaction.

He reaches out slowly, puts his hand against her shoulder, and she literally flinches, jerking away from him as if he'd burned her. "Rachel." He says her name quietly, and it's like he flipped a switch, because she stands abruptly and turns her body away from his. Her phone tumbles across the carpet as she pulls her dress over her head, and she practically runs out the door, grabbing her keys from his dresser and muttering something that he thinks is supposed to serve as a goodbye.

Fuck.

He gets that she's upset. He isn't a complete moron. He's only ever heard her mention her roommate in passing, but he knows that they didn't hate each other, and he knows that he'd feel pretty shitty if he found out that his freshman roommate was dead too. You can't live that closely with someone for that long without caring a little. All of that makes sense. He doesn't know how to deal with her reaction. He's used to taking Rachel, doing Rachel, not this near-catatonic Rachel.

There's also the fact that they're just friends. He isn't supposed to feel this urge to comfort her, to fix it, to try to make her feel better, at least not unless she asks him to. They aren't that kind of friends. He's the guy who gets her off, not the guy she talks to about things that matter. She made it really clear that this thing they're doing is just friends having sex. Repeatedly.

Sue him if he thinks that maybe that doesn't matter so much right now.

He decides that he's going to her house, at the very least because he finds her phone under his desk and she's going to want that back. He takes his time showering and getting dressed, to give her a chance to be alone or whatever, and he thinks about taking the long way to her house, but he figures that if she's going to get pissed off that he shows up, it won't matter if it's in ten minutes or twenty.

He's sort of relieved when he sees her car in the driveway. (He wouldn't put it past her to run off and hide somewhere.)

Her dads are at work, so he lets himself in the back door. It isn't until he walks through her open doorway that he remembers their agreement not to show up unnanounced at one another's houses. After the way she left his, he thinks it's safe to say fuck the rules. (Plus, he has her phone in his hand.)

She's sitting on the floor, her back against the side of the bed. Her laptop is perched on her legs, and there are tears on her cheeks when she looks up at him. (He's relieved to see that she's crying, and it makes him feel like a complete bastard.) He toes off his shoes and sits beside her, putting her phone in her hand.

After a few minutes of silence, she closes the laptop and sets it on the floor beside her. "We weren't best friends," she finally says. "I don't know how much time we would have spent together next year when we weren't living together. But we spent nine months sharing a shoebox." She glances over at him, shrugs one shoulder. "She's dead."

The way she says it makes his chest hurt. "Rachel."

She shakes her head and swallows thickly. "I don't know how to deal with this."

"I don't think you're supposed to," he tells her honestly. "Fuck, Rach, we're nineteen. People our age aren't supposed to die."

He hears her breath hitch, and he knows she's crying in earnest again. "I hate this."

There isn't any way to respond to that, so he just sits with her while she cries.

Later, after her dads have come home and they've all eaten dinner, he and Rachel are lying on her bed, him on his back with his hands resting on his stomach and her on her side facing him. (Puck stayed because she asked him to, and he really can't say no to her right now, even if watching her push food around her plate totally blows.) They aren't idoing/i anything, just talking. The room is quiet other than their voices, and though it's the second time it's been like this in just a few weeks, he isn't freaked out by it this time. This time, he gets it.

Generally, Puck doesn't do still or quiet, but Rachel's been making him do things that are out of character for years. He notices - he always notices - but he doesn't care.

"Do you believe in heaven?" she asks. The question comes out of nowhere, especially since they've both been quiet for a while. He shakes his head, just barely, and doesn't take his eyes of the ceiling; he doesn't want to get into this. "Noah."

He sighs. "I dunno. I mean, I'm not sure about pearly gates and all that, but there has to be something after this, right?" He fucking hates this, really. He knows what classes he's taking next semester, but he doesn't really like thinking much further into the future than that. Sure, there's a super-vauge wife-and-kids situation at the back of his mind, but fuck all that mortality noise.

"I do," she says quietly. "I think that when someone who loves us dies, they look over us."

He doesn't know what to say to that, so he doesn't say anything.

He stays there with her until he sees her eyelids start to get heavy, then kisses her cheek and tells her to call him if she needs anything. She's curled up under a throw blanket, still wearing her pink dress, and it's so fucking sad that he just can't.

His phone buzzes when he's at home, pulling back the covers so he can go to sleep. It's early, but apparently hanging out with a sad girl is exhausting. He checks his texts and smiles a little when he sees Rachel's simple _Thank you._

* * *

When she calls Allie's mom the next day to get the details about the funeral, she ends up crying into the phone. She hates herself for it, feels like dirt when the woman who just lost her daughter winds up comforting Rachel.

She doesn't want to cry any more, though she knows she hasn't even really cried that much. She still feels drained, wrung out, and she wants to go back to the day before yesterday when her biggest concern was which novel to read next. Now she's thinking about life and death and what it all means, and it's just too much. Noah was right: They're too young to be thinking about this.

She's restless, so she gets dressed and gets in her car and drives to Sheets 'n Things where Noah is working an afternoon shift. He's cashiering when she walks through the automatic doors, which she knows he hates, so she isn't at all surprised that he picks up the phone next to his register when he sees her and tells whoever answers that he's taking his lunch. He pulls his apron over his head and tosses it on the shelf under his register before turning his back on the woman who was clearly waiting to check out.

"That was incredibly rude, Noah, and unprofessional," Rachel tells him when he's standing next to her.

He shrugs and starts walking to the door, knowing she'll follow. "'S'not like I'm dedicated to this job, and they should know better than to schedule me up front." They walk down the sidewalk that lines the front of the strip mall, and he leads her into a little smoothie shop. Neither of them really speaks to the other until they've ordered and are sitting at a little table in the corner with their drinks. "How are you doing?" he finally asks. His voice is even, bordering on nonchalant, and she loves him for it a little bit. It feels normal, even if she doesn't.

"Fine," she lies, shrugging one shoulder and toying with the straw in her drink. She isn't at all interested in drinking it. She can feel Noah looking at her, but it isn't any different than usual, unlike the way her fathers watched her with concerned eyes this morning over breakfast before they both left for work. She hasn't talked to any of her other friends because she doesn't really know how to broach the subject, doesn't want their concern or their sympathy. Honestly, she probably wouldn't have told Noah if he hadn't been sitting right there when she got the news.

Rachel knows that he doesn't know what to do with her; he isn't any better equipped to deal with death than she is. He's trying though, and that's enough, really. She'd been in shock when she ran out of his house yesterday, but as soon as she was sitting in her room, she'd realized that she really didn't want to be alone. She'd been relieved when he walked into her room and sat beside her. He didn't offer her soft platitudes or hug her like he thought he was supposed to. He was just there.

She doesn't need anyone. She's an adult, and she's always been very independent. She can entertain herself, motivate herself, comfort herself. She doesn't _need _him to be there with her, for her. But he is there, and she likes it.

"I called Allie's mom," she finally says, glancing up to meet his eyes. "To get the details about the funeral. They're having it Friday afternoon, and I was wondering-" She cuts herself off, biting her lip and taking a deep breath. "I was wondering if you would go with me," she finishes softly.

"Sure." He says it easily, without hesitating, the way he might agree to go with her on a coffee run.

She smiles at him just a little. "I just don't want to go alone," she admits, lowering her eyes and examining the pattern in the Formica tabletop.

"Rachel." He says her name quietly and waits until she looks up at him to speak again. "It's fine. I mean, I'm not, like, happy to go, but I don't mind."

His honestly makes her laugh a little. "Thank you."

His foot slides across the tile floor and settles next to hers, and his shoelace tickles the top of her foot, left bare by her sandals. "Any time."

* * *

She's acting a little more like herself by Friday when they head out of Lima, albeit a little quieter. Allie's family lives in a little town outside of Chicago, and Puck notices her singing along with the radio a couple of times as she drives. It's a good sign, he thinks.

She spent a day hanging out with Tina, and Finn and Kurt convinced her to play in their "epic Mario Kart tournament." She finally told everyone what was up, but she's been acting like it isn't a big deal even though they all know better. The thing is, none of them really know how to deal with this. Their senior year of high school, a freshman at McKinley was killed in a car accident, and the whole school basically shut down while everyone mourned, but no one Puck knew had actually been close with the kid. For his part, he hadn't even recognized the name when it started getting thrown around, and this is completely different. Rachel _knew _this girl. They slept in the same room, shared a TV and fridge, watched some stupid teen drama together religiously every week.

They drive straight through after they leave Lima, not stopping until she puts the car in park in the lot at the funeral home.

"You good?" he asks, watching her tuck her keys into her purse. She takes a deep breath and looks over at him, shakes her head just slightly. "Are you going to be okay?" he amends quietly.

She bites her lip and nods slowly. "I think so."

He waits until she gets out of the car, then follows her into the crowded building. He's there to support her, but he's kind of just along for the ride. The plan in his head is just to follow her lead, whether she sits there and cries for hours or runs out in the middle of the service. He's just going to be there for her.

He's really uncomfortable, honestly. He's never been to a funeral, and this room is full of people and emotions that he, frankly, isn't really equipped to deal with. Some religious guy, a reverend or a pastor or whatever, is standing at the front of the room, and he's talking about light and love and a "better place." Puck is thinking it all sounds like a lot of trite garbage, but then he hears Rachel's breath hitch. He takes her hand, lacing their fingers together and letting his thumb brush over her wrist. He doesn't even really know how to comfort her through this, but holding her hand while she cries can't be the worst thing.

She's still crying when music starts playing at the end of the service, and when she looks over at him with watery eyes and whispers that she doesn't want to go to the cemetery, there's no way he's going to argue with her. He just takes the keys from her hand and leads her back to her car without comment, not letting go of her hand until they separate to go to their respective sides of the car.

They're out of town and back out on the highway before Rachel finally says something. "I walked in on her having sex once." He glances over at her with wide eyes, and she laughs. "One of my classes was canceled, so I went back to the dorms and I opened the door, and she was on top of the guy she was dating, totally naked."

Fuck, she's pretty when she smiles, even if she's been crying for the last hour and her cheeks are blotchy. "What did you do?"

"I shut the door and went to the library," she answers seriously. "I think I was more embarrassed than she was. We spent the rest of the year joking about it. We even agreed to institute the scrunchie system, but it never came up again."

"That's awesome."

She's quiet for a moment, then says, thoughtfully, "She had great breasts." He gapes at her for a second, then laughs so hard that he gets tears in his eyes. Admittedly, it isn't really that funny, but he's so happy that she's laughing that he might be feeling more relief than amusement.

* * *

She thinks she might love him for being so wonderful today, for being there for her through something that he's obviously uncomfortable with and not once saying a thing about himself. (With the exception of insisting that they stop to eat somewhere in the middle of Indiana; he claimed that he'd die of starvation if he had to wait any longer, then convinced her to eat something too.) He drives the entire four plus hours back home, waking her up when he's parked her car in her driveway and shut off the engine. She's disoriented, not sure how long she's been asleep, and the way he brushes his fingers over her cheek and says her name, combined with his actions over the last few days, makes her feel this rush of affection for him.

She feels fairly certain that he won't say no when she asks him if he'll come inside with her, and he just smiles and gives her her keys and follows her up the sidewalk. She walks gingerly in her bare feet, carrying her heels in one hand. Her fathers went away for the weekend right after work (She'd insisted that they not change their plans.), so the house is quiet when she unlocks the door, and mostly dark as the sun is low in the sky. She's in her room before she realizes that Noah isn't right behind her, but he comes in just a moment later carrying a glass of water that he sits on her nightstand. It's been years since she told him that story, and she's genuinely surprised that he seems to remember.

He slips off his shoes and sits on the edge of her bed while she takes off her jewelry and watches his reflection in the dresser mirror. "Thank you," she says quietly, closing the lid of her jewelry chest. "For today, and...everything." He nods when she turns to look at him. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, his hands clasped loosely in front of him, and she realizes that it's been nearly a week since they've slept together. He hasn't even tried to initiate anything. It's the longest they've gone since summer began, and she's suddenly overcome with the need to feel his hands on her, to feel him moving inside her.

There isn't a right way to do this, she thinks, so she just reaches behind her back and tugs down the zipper of her simple black dress, tossing it over on the chair in the corner after she's stepped out of it. Noah says her name quietly, and she just shakes her head, pushing her hair back as she stands there in her bra and panties. "Please, Noah," she says softly. "I just want..." She trails off, taking a deep breath before looking into his eyes. "I just want to not think." She doesn't know how else to say it.

He stands, stepping towards her and putting his hands on her waist, sliding them up and down her sides as he watches her face. She doesn't know what he's looking for, what he can see, but she doesn't think he's ever looked at her this way before. Goosebumps cover her skin when he finally lowers his head to kiss her. His lips are soft against hers, almost chaste, and while she appreciates what he's doing, or trying to do, she needs more. She grasps his collar in her fist with one hand while the other works open the buttons of his shirt, pushing her tongue past his lips and kissing him hard until he reciprocates.

He grabs her wrists when she starts opening his belt buckle. "Rachel," he mumbles against her lips. "Are you sure?"

She pulls away from him just enough to look into his eyes. "Yes." She twists her hand in his grip a little, grasping his wrist and guiding him to touch her over her panties, her mouth falling open just a bit when he gives her what she wants. "_Noah_."

Apparently that's all it takes, because he turns them, pushing her back onto the bed, watching as she scoots up to rest against the pillows. She watches as he unbuttons his pants and pushes them down his legs, his boxers with them, moans a little when she sees all of him. She knows what he's capable of, knows he can make her stop thinking, make it impossible for her to think, and she wants that nearly as much as she wants the physical release. She sits up enough to unhook her bra and pull it from her body, dropping it on the floor next to the bed.

She parts her legs when he joins her on the bed, and he lies on top of her, kissing her slow and deep as he skims his hands over her body, touching her everywhere but where she wants him, smirking against her lips when she whines, her fingertips grasping at his back. It's a struggle to catch her breath when he pulls away, moving down her body, teasing with his lips and tongue as he rolls her panties off her hips with his hands. When he moves away to reach into the nightstand without putting his mouth on her, she whimpers so loudly that she's embarrassed for a moment.

Noah watches her while he rolls the condom on; she's practically writhing beneath him, and the tiny part of her brain that can form a coherent thought understands what he's doing. For a man seemingly devoted to instant gratification, he has perfected the act of teasing a woman to the brink, and she practically yells his name when he brushes his fingers over her nerves. "So wet," he mutters against her neck, his lips skating up to tease her ear.

"I can't," she gasps, shifting her hips restlessly. "I want - fuck, _please_."

He's going to make her forget. This is probably the first thing that's happened this week that he really igets/i. He always thought that 'sex as an affirmation of life' stuff was bullshit, but he knows that's exactly what Rachel's doing. She said she doesn't want to think, and Puck knows her well enough to understand that's something that rarely happens, but he thinks he can do it give her what she wants by, well, not giving her what she wants. So he's teasing her, pushing her toward the edge and holding here there for a bit.

She keens out his name when he finally pushes into her, and it only takes a few slow, deep thrusts to make her come so hard that she bites down on the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He rides it out with her, grinding his hips against her gently while peppering her face and lips with little kisses. She blinks up at him after a bit, moans when he snaps his hips a little. "I bit you," she observes, brushing her fingers over the red mark she made.

He grins down at her smugly. "'S'hot," he tells her before dipping his head to nip at her neck in kind. He wraps his hand around her thigh just above her knee, hitching her leg up around his hip, his movements quickening. "You look amazing when you come," he tells her, and she can't even describe the feeling that washes over her when she hears the words.

Noah takes his time, ignoring her whines (or enjoying them enough to want her to carry on), and when she comes again it's the result of a kind of slow burn. Her back arches and she breathes out his name, and he follows her right after. He rests some of his weight on her while he catches his breath, and she knows it's because she mentioned once that she likes it. He steps into the bathroom for a moment, smirking when he sees her looking at his body from under heavy eyelids when he comes back.

"You should stay," she says when he bends to pick up his boxers. She startles herself, completely unaware that she was thinking it before the words slipped out. "I know it isn't part of our usual arrangement, but if you want to, you should."

(Puck doesn't let himself acknowledge the weird thing is heart does in his chest at her words. If he doesn't acknowledge it, it didn't happen, right?)

He watches her for a moment, considering, then drops his underwear and walks back around the bed, sliding under the sheets beside her. She doesn't generally sleep naked, but she's exhausted - it's been a long day - and if she is going to be naked, it might as well be when she has a man in her bed. She wonders if maybe it was a bad decision when she feels his chest pressing against her back. "Noah," she murmurs, shrugging he shoulder a little.

"What?" He already sounds half-asleep, which she absolutely does not understand. He ijust/i got into bed.

"I'm not really into the cuddling...thing." It's true, even if she doesn't hate the way his fingertips are brushing her hip under the covers. She always felt like she couldn't breathe when other men (mostly Finn) tried what Noah's trying now.

"Me either," he agrees, his lips brushing her hair. "Let's try it."

She really can't think of a good reason to say no, so she says nothing, and when she wakes up tomorrow she'll refuse to admit, even to herself, that falling asleep in his arms was incredibly comforting.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** So, the reviews I got for the last chapter absolutely blew me away. Thank you all for being so amazing! And, not to be that girl, but for those of you who mentioned wanting to read other stuff I've written, I have a LJ linked at my profile with fics that aren't posted here, just in case you're interested.

* * *

When Finn starts talking about the county fair and how much fun it would be to go as a group, Puck has to admit that the idea doesn't suck. (Not out loud, of course.) They set it up every July out at the fairgrounds, and it's all rickety rides and amazing junk food and sub-par musical performances, and it's kind of awesome. It's a "thing" in Lima, a tradition observed by most of people he knows. He's gone every summer for as long as he can remember, back when his dad was still around and then later when he was taking Abby and coercing her into getting on rides she was scared of. New Directions had performed there last year, the last time the original members, save Matt, ever sang all together. Basically, it's a big ball of nostalgia, battered and deep-fried and served on a stick like all the best fair food is.

All right, so he's totally into this.

As soon as they get to the fairgrounds and pile out of the cars, everyone starts pairing off. Artie obviously can't do rides, and Mercedes gets motion sickness, so they head toward the midway to play the (totally rigged) games. Finn's girlfriend, Fiona, and Kurt's boyfriend, Davis, are both hanging out for the weekend, so both couples run off for "alone time." Mike Chang has been babbling about funnel cakes for literally three days, so Tina heads off with him, and Puck would be lying if he said he wasn't happy to spend some time alone with Rachel. Clothed time, that is.

It's been a few weeks since they went to Allie's funeral, and Rachel is basically back to being herself, or at least the version of herself that she's been this summer. (Sometimes he walks into her house and finds her really embracing her "free time," sleeping till noon on a Sunday or watching an entire season of_ The Tudors_ on DVD in a single day, and it completely freaks him out.) They're having sex just like they had been, though now they're spending a bit more time together just hanging out. They've gone out to dinner a couple of times, been to some movies, and they're pretty awesome at sitting around their bedrooms doing nothing - but they aren't dating.

(The fact that she's so clueless really pisses him off sometimes.)

They're left standing near the carousel after everyone else runs off, and Puck is eying a kid stumbling around with a caramel apple. Little dude has the sticky stuff all over his face and hands, and he's walking into all of the people around him, and Puck is not down for walking around with sticky shorts all night (dirty) because somebody let their kid off the leash.

"So what are we going to do?" Rachel asks, looking around like she's assessing the options.

He looks down at her, standing there with her hands tucked in the back pockets of her little denim shorts, the lights from the carousel playing on her face. "I'm good with whatever," he answers with a shrug. "You know I'm into it."

"I know," she says with a grin. Maybe he admitted to her that Finn's idea didn't suck last night, but she brought it up right after they had sex up against his bedroom door for the hell of it, so he really can't be held responsible. Orgasms sort of fuck up his brain-to-mouth filter. "But can we not have the cheesy 'he won me a stuffed animal' moment?"

He cracks up, dropping his arm on her shoulder and walking them towards where the bigger rides are set up. "Good to know you aren't getting sentimental on me, Berry."

They get tickets for rides, and when Rachel drags him straight to a contraption that looks like a Ferris wheel with cages that spin, flipping their occupants upside-down, he wishes they were at a real theme park with real rides, because who knew that Rachel Berry was an adrenaline-seeker? She laughs hysterically every time the cage spins, her hair flying everywhere, and he is so fucking into this Rachel that he doesn't even have words for it.

He lets her choose the next ride since her first choice was fucking awesome, and she uses the elastic around her wrist to twist her hair up into a messy knot while they're standing in line, showing off the back of her neck. The urge to lean down and press a kiss to it is strong and kinda fucked up, so he ignores it, focusing instead on a dude walking towards them with a straight-up mullet. He leans down, puts his lips a little closer to her ear than necessary, and says, "Hey, have you ever played Spot the Mullet?"

Her brow is furrowed when she looks up at him. "Are you serious?" He widens his eyes at her, nods toward Mullet Guy when he walks by. "Oh my god," she laughs. "Do you think there are more?"

"Yeah, I do." This kind of set-up is, like, the mothership or whatever for the kind of people who get mullets. This dude can't be the only one rocking it. (What? Mullets are ridiculous, but Puck's a guy who walked around with a mohawk off and on for about four years.)

"Let's make it a real game," she suggests, a wicked little grin on her face. The best shit always happens when she looks devious like that, and always has, so he's totally down. "Whoever spots the most mullets wins."

"What're the stakes?" She shrugs as if that doesn't matter, which is not going to fly. Puck doesn't play games without a payoff. "C'mon, Rach. There has to be something."

She thinks for a moment, and he literally watches her face change from thoughtful to sexy as fuck. "Sexual favors." Goddamn. "Winner gets to cash in a sexual favor of her choosing."

"His," he corrects automatically, but that sexy little smile doesn't leave her lips. He holds out his hand and they shake. He already loves this game, and not just because he's winning. (And yeah, he totally points that out.)

It only takes a couple of hours to ride everything that wasn't designed to delight a 4-year-old, including a spin on the Tilt-a-Whirl with Kurt and Davis after they run into them. The score of their game is tied 3-3, and who knew there were so many mullets in Ohio? Puck's trying not to think too hard about the potential payoff, because he has a lot of ideas and basically all of them make him want to drag her off to a dark corner right here, and there's no way in hell that she's going to let him fuck her with carnies around. Truth? He doesn't actually want to fuck her with carnies around either.

They decide to go see what musical atrocities are taking place on the stage to kill some time before they're supposed to meet up with the rest of the group to head back to town. Their walk takes them past the kiddie rides, down the midway, and through the little village of food stands. They stop at one so Puck can get a corn dog (she wrinkles her nose a little) and Rachel can get cotton candy, and after he's inhaled his own food, he starts stealing the sweet strands from the paper cone in her hand.

"If you wanted some, you should've gotten your own," she admonishes the third time he does it, but she doesn't actually look annoyed.

He nudges her with his hip as they walk. "Nah, 's'better when I take it from you."

"You're ridiculous."

"You like it." The way she's smiling when she shakes her head lets him know that, yeah, she does. He sort of has a habit of stealing food from her: french fries from that drive-in, the crusts of her pizza when he badgers her into ordering in, sips of whatever she's ordered from Starbucks even though he always gives her shit about the soy milk. She comments every time, but she never tells him to stop. He probably wouldn't even if she did, honestly.

They stand at the back of the crowd of people watching the excuse of a cover band on the stage while they finish the cotton candy (and she ends up giving him the last few bites), and Rachel actually holds back on her criticism until the third time the singer flubs the lyrics of "Hotel California." He's totally bracing himself for it, but even then, she doesn't actually say anything, just takes his hand and starts walking away. The fact that she doesn't unleash an epic rant must mean that she's maturing. Really, he's heard enough of them to know exactly how it would go without her getting into it. Thinking about all of the things he knows she wants to say is pretty funny, so the whole thing makes him laugh, and it's even funnier when she glares up at him as they wind their way through the crowds of people.

It's close to the time the group agreed to meet up, so he isn't sure where she's going, and neither of them says anything until he realizes that she's got his hand in hers and is pulling him toward the line for the Ferris wheel. "Rachel," he half-whines. "Do we have to do this?"

"Oh, come on, Noah. The Ferris wheel is a classic. Just because it isn't fast and exciting doesn't mean that it isn't still worthy of our attention." She rolls her eyes when he continues to look at her disbelievingly. "Fine. You don't have to stay with me if you don't want to."

"Shut up." He isn't going to leave her on her own just to avoid some stupid ride. "It's fine."

It isn't until they're on the ride, stopped at the top while someone else is loaded in, that he realizes that she was right. It may be a cheap, slightly ridiculous county fair, but they're just high enough that with all the lights spread out beneath them, it is pretty, and he's barely even ithought/i it before she's looking up at him knowingly. "I told you so."

"It doesn't suck," he admits. She just smiles, loops her arm through his, and leans her head against his shoulder. If they were actually dating, this would be romantic. Fuck, it is romantic, and it makes it really fucking difficult to act like they're just friends.

He doesn't want to think about it. He and Rachel have a really good thing going, and he knows that he should just keep his fucking emotions to himself. She's kind of awesome, though. She's really chill right now, and even though she keeps talking about how she's just taking advantage of it being summer, he can tell that she's actually relaxed a lot in the last year. They're great together in bed, which he thinks is pretty important, and sometimes they hang out without having sex and he doesn't even get bored like he tends to do with other girls. Rachel is definitely the best female friend he's ever had, and that probably counts for something.

His mind is a fucking traitor.

So he forces himself to go blank and just enjoy the view and the light breeze and the way Rachel's all pressed up beside him. He considers trying to cop a feel, but there are kids around and even he doesn't want to be that guy, so he just kind of takes it all in. Rachel's being all mellow and relaxed and not really talking, but he doesn't mind. It's a moment or whatever, and he's into it. (And it's thoughts like that that make him feel like a complete fucking pussy.)

They go to meet up with the rest of the group at the carousel after the ride is over, and everyone looks as tired as Puck feels. Mike is totally crashing after a sugar high (Puck's seen the guy do that a few times before.), and Fiona's leaned up against Finn as they stand there. They pile back into cars for the drive home without talking much, and when they get back to Lima, Rachel drops off Mike and Tina at Tina's place first.

"Come in," Puck says when Rachel stops at the curb in front of his house.

She looks over at him, her hands resting on the steering wheel. "Noah, it's late and-"

He cuts her off with his lips, leaning across the console kissing her slowly, letting one hand wrap around the back of her neck, his thumb stroking the skin behind her ear. "Come in," he repeats, his lips skating up her jaw. He turns off the engine and tugs her keys out of the ignition. "I haven't had you alone today."

She pulls away a little and shakes her head at him. "We were alone all day."

"In public," he counters. "Around a bunch of strangers and carnies and little kids. I want you alone and naked in my bed."

She glances up at the dark house, but the fact that she didn't get all pissy when he turned off the car means that he already has her. "But your mom-"

"Sleeps like the dead and works early tomorrow," he finishes for her. "She won't even notice. It's fine, baby." He skims his fingers along her collarbone like he knows will make her tremble, tracing the chain of her necklace down to the little gold heart dangling just above the neckline of her tank top.

She takes a little breath, glancing up at the house again before meeting his eyes and nodding slowly before looking down with a super-hot little smile on her face.

They tiptoe up the stairs (unnecessarily), and he presses her against the door as soon as they're in his room, kissing the breath from her while he slides his hands up her shirt. She pushes against his chest, breathing out his name and looking up at him through her eyelashes when he takes a step back. She locks eyes with him as she unbuttons her shorts and steps out of them, then pulls her shirt over her head so she's standing there in front of him in a black bra and panties, and it's definitely hotter than it should be.

He can tell she's working to be quiet when he pulls down the cup of her bra to take a nipple into his mouth, his hand sliding into the front of her panties and making her gasp his name.

She moans into his mouth when she lets go, and he teases her, tells her he's proud of her for "keeping it down" when they're both catching their breath. She lets out a little laugh, swatting his chest with a hand that he grabs and holds there until he falls asleep.

* * *

He isn't sure if he'll ever get her like this again, sleeping in his bed, her breath warm on his chest and their legs tangled together, so when he hears his neighbor leaving for work just before six in his loud ass truck, Puck decides to take advantage, pushing his hands up her (his) shirt and whispering her name against her ear until her eyelids flutter open.

She goes back to sleep after, even though the room is lightening with the sunrise, lying on her stomach in one of his old football tee shirts. Her hair is fanned across the pillow, all messy from sleep and sex. He likes the way she looks there. (Maybe just a little too much.)

* * *

They decide that since their game of Spot the Mullet ended in a tie, it's only fair that they each get to redeem a sexual favor. It's legitimately the best day of her summer so far when neither of them chooses something entirely selfish. He's all for what she wants, and even if she won't admit it, she's intrigued by his request when he shares it. (And after, she almost wishes he'd brought it up sooner. Hell, she'd have brought it up herself if she'd known it would be that good.)

* * *

Santana's parents decide that seeing their daughter once a year is unacceptable, so they buy a plane ticket so she can spend a week in Lima. Santana declares that she won't come home without Brittany, so Mr. Lopez buys Brittany a ticket as well.

They fly in on a Sunday afternoon, and by nine o' clock, everyone has gathered around the pool in the backyard of Santana's enormous house, drinking margaritas and catching up on everything that's happened since they saw one another last. (A year ago, two hours ago, whatever. There are always things to talk about.) By eleven, everyone is drunk.

It's kind of becoming a theme this summer, and Rachel definitely doesn't hate it.

They all jump in the pool, and Finn starts singing "Fishin' in the Dark" for reasons that no one else understands. (It's likely because he's very drunk and tequila makes Finn do strange things.) Even though the whole thing is ridiculous, they all sing along loudly until Santana's mom comes outside in her silk nightgown with a sleep mask pushed up on top of her head and hisses something at them about their neighbors that makes Santana roll her eyes.

Rachel and Tina play chicken on Noah and Mike's shoulders, and after they win, Rachel lets Noah pin her against the side of the pool and kiss her senseless, only stopping him when his hand wanders beneath the water to tease the edge of her bikini bottoms. He follows her inside to the bathroom, and even though she wants him badly (tequila makes Rachel _friendly_), she refuses to let him get her off in a house with their friend's parents and little brother sleeping upstairs, not to mention all of their friends outside knowing exactly what they're doing.

Later, when she's home alone in her own bed and still a little tipsy, she lets her hand wander down her body as she think about all the things he'd whispered in her ear that he wanted to do to her. She says his name when she comes, which she's never, ever done when she was on her own, but she's so tired that she falls asleep before she can really think about it.

She meets Santana and Tina at a diner downtown for a late breakfast the next morning, all three of them nursing slight hangovers and looking a little worse for the wear. Even though they're inside, Tina doesn't take off her sunglasses until she's downed half a cup of coffee, and Santana isn't wearing a stitch of makeup.

"Hey, when did you and Puck get so cozy?" Santana asks around a mouthful of pancakes.

Rachel blinks, a little thrown by the change of subject; Tina was just talking about her summer job at the thrift store, telling a story about the less-than-savory things people sometimes bring in to sell. "Pardon me?"

"I know you're doing the dirty, but you were all affectionate and shit last night."

"We were drunk," Rachel points out, plucking a raspberry from the bowl in front of her and popping it into her mouth. She's trying to remember a moment from the night before that could be described as "affectionate," and she's coming up blank. Everything she remembers would be labeled inappropriate - or worse. "Puck and I are both handsy drunks," she finally says with a shrug. It's the only explanation she can come up with.

"Rachel," Santana begins condescendingly, "I know what handsy looks like. This was not handsy."

Rachel glances over at Tina imploringly, but the girl just keeps her eyes on her plate, poking at her omelet. She really doesn't know what to say, because once Santana has made up her mind, it's hard to change it. She and Noah are friends who happen to have amazing physical chemistry. Yes, they're quite close friends, closer than they were at the beginning of summer, but it's really nothing more than that.

"My head hurts," she finally says, wanting to avoid the subject altogether and not waste her time. "I really don't want to have this conversation with you."

Santana smirks. "Fine. I'll be expecting a 'you were right, Santana' call sometime soon." She takes a bite of bacon and giggles a little when Rachel glares across the table at her.

* * *

Puck's in the kitchen making a sandwich when the doorbell rings, and he almost doesn't answer it because he's enjoying having the house to himself. His mom is at work, and Abby will be at day camp for a couple more hours, and he really just wants to eat his sandwich and not talk to anyone.

He walks to the door and pulls it open on the off chance that it might be Rachel, even though she's never, ever shown up at his door without calling or texting first. (He would totally give up a sandwich and alone time for sex with Rachel.)

He's completely surprised to see Brittany standing on his front porch.

"Hi, Puck!" she greets cheerfully, pushing past him and walking into the living room.

He follows her because he doesn't know what the hell else to do, and finds her sitting on the couch, sucking on a lollipop with her bare feet propped up on the coffee table. Brittany has never been to his house, and he's not even sure how she knew where he lived. Fuck, he's wondered how she even remembers where ishe/i lives. "What's up?" he asks after a minute.

She looks over at him seriously when he sits on the other end of the couch, though she doesn't look too serious brandishing a lollipop and with her hair in pigtails. "You're in love with Rachel."

Okay, what the fuck?

"The fuck are you talking about, Britt?"

"I saw you at Santana's on Sunday night, and you two are like Holly and Fred," she tells him, and he has no idea who the fuck she's talking about, but he's a little freaked out that she thinks she noticed anything going on between them beyond the fact that they're fucking. He sure as hell isn't going to go so far as to say he's in love with Rachel, but he has feelings for her or whatever, even if he is keeping that shit under wraps. And he's been doing a fucking good job of it too; Rachel hasn't noticed (he's pretty sure she'd pull away if she knew), and none of their friends have said anything (and every fucking one of them is a meddling shit stirrer and absolutely would say something if they'd noticed).

The fact that sprinkles-for-brains Brittany noticed something is fucked, but it probably makes sense somehow.

"Britt, did you ever find that leprechaun that was painting your goldfish?"

"No. I think he stopped, because the goldfish died."

Puck nods, as if this proves something, but Brittany seems unimpressed and maybe a little confused by the random question. He probably would be too, but it makes sense to him.

She looks thoughtful for a moment (weird) before pulling the sweet out of her mouth with a pop. "Does Rachel know you're in love with her?"

He rolls his eyes and thinks about the half-finished sandwich sitting on the kitchen counter. He should have ignored the doorbell. "I'm not in love with her."

"Puck," she says gently, moving so she's sitting right beside him on the couch. "You should tell Rachel you're in love with her. Talking about your feelings is important."

"Britt-"

"First," she interrupts, widening her eyes at him, "you should probably tell yourself that you're in love with Rachel. Otherwise you'll just be confused."

He's annoyed. If it was anyone else sitting here, trying to tell him what he feels, he'd be fucking pissed, but being mad at Brittany is like being mad at a cupcake or a string of twinkle lights or something equally nonthreatening. Instead of arguing, he just changes the subject, asking if she wants to hang out or something. Watching movies with Brittany was always a trip.

"Nope. I'm meeting Santana and Rachel and Mercedes for pedicures. Don't worry," she adds quickly, standing up. "I won't tell them you're in love with Rachel."

All he can do is shake his head when she leans over to kiss his cheek, leaving a sticky spot, before bounding out of the house.

Awesome. He's been mindfucked.

He is inot/i in love with Rachel. He's not. They're friends who have sex, and yeah, they're better friends now than they were back at the beginning of the summer. Rachel's gone through some heavy shit, and he was there for all of it, so it just makes sense that they're closer. He cares about her. Fuck, he hasn't even thought about sleeping with anyone else this summer (including the blonde he works with at Sheets 'n Things who just graduated from McKinley and keeps throwing herself at him).

Caring about her doesn't mean that he loves her. Besides, he's been in love with someone who didn't love him back before. He isn't doing it again.


	4. Chapter 4

Her dads go on a vacation to wine country the first week of August, and Rachel suddenly feels like her time is running out. She's eager to get back to school, of course; that's just the girl she is. Still, she really has enjoyed her free time, even if it was a struggle against herself at first. Once she figured out how to relax and just _be_, it was incredible. Her summer has been filled with everything from lazy days to silly parties, from time with friends to sex with Noah, and she isn't ready for all of that to be over.

She realizes that she's mourning the end of something that isn't even over yet and berates herself for it. She has three more weeks of summer, three more weeks of friends and freedom and sex and fun, including this week with her fathers away. She intends to make the most of it.

Her fathers haven't really commented on the way she's spent her time this summer. She's an adult, and as long as she isn't being reckless or destructive, they leave her alone. In fact, the one time one of them did say something, her dad commended her on spending her summer enjoying herself with friends instead of focusing on her career aspirations. She isn't surprised; they're generally quite supportive of whatever she chooses to do. Still, there's the rebellious teenager inside of her that demands that she take advantage of their absence.

Naturally, she throws a party. (Because the first one had gone so well back in high school. She's removed enough from it now to think it's funny rather than mortifying, and at least this time it isn't dependent upon Noah picking the lock on her fathers' liquor cabinet.)

She's sitting at the breakfast table with Artie, Finn, and Mercedes playing Fuck the Dealer when Noah comes up behind her and gathers her hair from her shoulders, pulling gently and wrapping it around his fist until her head is tilted back. She's drunk enough that it makes the room spin a bit, and that feeling just increases when he presses his lips against hers, his tongue slipping into her mouth.

"Get a room!" Artie cries after a long moment, tossing a bottle cap at them and prompting Rachel to pull away just before she does something embarrassing like moan into Noah's mouth.

"Seriously," Mercedes agrees, and Rachel looks at her sheepishly.

Noah is smirking, she knows, because she can hear it in his voice when he says, "Oh, don't worry. We will." She turns to look at him, hissing his name. "Rach, everyone knows where we're going to end up. No point in being embarrassed about it."

She just shakes her head when he throws her a wink and walks away, flipping the next card in the deck and groaning when Finn "fucks" her. There's a reason that she doesn't generally play drinking games, and this is serving as a fabulous reminder. She's grateful that she's drinking beer instead of liquor, even though she's still completely drunk when she finally gets to pass the deck to Mercedes. She decides that she should get out before it's too late and the deck makes its way back to her.

Noah finds her in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and sipping a glass of water. She doesn't mind that she's drunk, exactly, but she has no desire to feel awful all day tomorrow, and the water will help. She's really not a fan of being hungover. He takes the glass from her hand and takes a deep drink, eyes locked with hers as he steps close and puts the glass on the counter behind her. "I like this dress," he tells her, skimming his fingers over the spaghetti strap on her shoulder. It's a simple dress, dark blue and low-cut and not too short, and she's worn it a lot this summer.

"Thank you." She looks up at him through her eyelashes, because even though the house is full of their friends, she wants him. They'd spent the afternoon making out on her bed while her fathers packed and got ready to head to the airport, and he'd whispered dozens of filthy things he wants to do to her while they have a house all to themselves.

She's considering those promises, and she has every intention of making him keep them.

He's pinning her against the counter, his lips skimming over her throat, when Tina walks in with Davis, Kurt's boyfriend. "You two are shameless!" she says loudly, making Rachel jump and arch her back to pull away from Noah. Her movement presses their hips together, and he curses before glaring over his shoulder at Tina.

"You're killing me, Goth. Fuck."

Tina rolls her eyes at the ridiculous (outdated) nickname. "If you guys are going to do this, the rest of us need to start calling for a sober ride. I am not interested in hearing Puck and Rachel sex noises tonight." Her hands are on her hips like she means business.

Noah smirks, turning away from Rachel to give Tina his full attention. "Chang can't get it up when he's drunk, huh?"

Tina glares, not at Noah, but at Davis, who snickers and shrugs. "It's funnier than you think it is, sweetheart," he tells her with a smile, making her huff out a breath. Rachel isn't sure that questioning Mike's sexual prowess to Tina is funny, but that doesn't matter, apparently, since she's laughing too.

"When the gays are agreeing with Puck, there's something wrong with the world," Tina declares, and that's when Rachel realizes just how drunk her friend is.

Of course, the way she's giggling, Rachel is proving that she's far from sober.

"I want to do shots with Davis," she announces abruptly, making the boy smile. "It's a good night for shots, isn't it?" She ignores the look Puck is giving her, walking around the island so she can go into the dining room where they've set up a makeshift bar, her arm linked with Davis'.

(If she looks at him, she knows he'll be looking at her like _that_, and she really doesn't want to be the hostess who leaves her guests to have drunk sex with her friend-with-benefits.)

* * *

They don't take advantage of the empty house that night because, for one thing, it isn't empty. It's full of their friends, and every last one of them wound up drunk. Truth is, that probably wouldn't have stopped either of them, but Rachel fell asleep (passed out) in her dress on her bed before Noah came upstairs from making sure no one was throwing up without a bucket or a trash can beside them. She wakes up the next morning under the covers but still in her dress, lying on her stomach with Noah's arm draped over her waist.

She makes it up to him that afternoon after everyone else has left and the house is mostly cleaned up. They're sitting on the couch in the den, watching some movie that he picked and sipping Gatorade when she smiles at him wickedly before sliding her hand into the front of the gym shorts he's wearing. She goes down on him, moaning around him when he comes down her throat, and she thinks she might agree when he tells her that it was the "fucking hottest fucking thing ever."

* * *

He goes straight to Rachel's house one day after his shift at Sheets 'n Things. They sucked him into cashiering when some bitch called in sick, and then he had to deal with the return from hell, and he fucking hates this job. He thinks this might be the perfect day to convince her to let him fuck her in the front hall of the house, especially since her dads are coming home in a couple of days and they'll both be back at school in a couple weeks.

He sent her a text before he left, so he just lets himself in the back door (which is both convenient and irritating since she's here completely fucking alone and anyone could get in) and heads upstairs. She's asleep, just curled up on the bed without a blanket or anything, which he knows means that she didn't mean to fall asleep. The girl has rules and routines for everything, including naps. She refuses to get under the covers of her bed ("I'll sleep too long."), but she has to be covered with a throw blanket. ("I'm cold-natured, Noah!") She even sets the alarm on her phone before she lies down. Now, however, she's just lying there, curled up in a pair of pink cotton shorts and a tissue-thin white Henley shirt that's completely unbuttoned so it dips down between her breasts. Even if the thing wasn't see-through, he'd be able to tell she's wearing a pale blue bra.

He feels a little like a creep, standing there in her doorway and watching her sleep, but he's sort of startled by how beautiful she looks. She's been wearing her hair long and straight all summer, and right now it's sort of everywhere, fanned out around her on the bedspread, and her lips are parted just a little bit. He's kind of torn between lying down with her to sleep and waking her up so he can watch her fall apart.

Since he doesn't want to _like _Rachel, (fuck, he can't), he goes for the latter, peeling off his shirt and jeans before lying behind her. He presses his hips into her ass and pushes her hair aside so he can kiss the side of her neck, mumbling her name and dirty things against her skin until she takes a deep breath and exhales on a little moan. Her back arches when he cups her breast, and it's completely fucked up, but he's getting hard just from the noises she's making.

She moves so she's lying on her back, gazing up at him through hooded eyes. She lifts her head a little and just brushes her lips against his. "I fell asleep," she murmurs, as if it wasn't obvious.

"'S'okay, baby," he tells her, sliding his hand up her shirt and across her stomach. He dips his head to kiss along her collarbone and and down her chest, nipping a little at the swell of her breasts. He fucking loves this shirt. He loves her naked, but he thinks he wants her to leave it on. He tells her that, and she giggles a little, running her fingers through his hair as he teases the spot just beneath her ear with his lips.

This is probably the best way to wake up _ever _she thinks when he finally kisses her for real, his tongue sliding against hers. God, she loves kissing him. He's just so good at it, always has been, and sometimes she thinks that if they did it for long enough, she might melt away in a little puddle of Rachel goo. And actually, she doesn't think that sounds at all terrible.

He's just lying beside her, kissing her everywhere above her breasts, one hand resting gently on her stomach while the other moves through her hair. He really likes her like this, slow and lazy and shifting her hips a little out of impatience, and she whimpers when he finally sinks into her. "You feel so good, Rachel," he tells her, a little more quietly than he means to, but she moans so he doesn't think she noticed.

Fuck. He meant to come over here and rail her, to use sex to get out some of his frustration from work. They do fast and dirty really well, and lazy and quiet wasn't really what he was after, but she's still sleepy (he can see it in her eyes), and she doesn't urge him to go faster. She's not at all shy about asking for what she wants in bed, so he figures she's into this slow thing, and he doesn't hate it. (It would probably be easier if he did.)

After, when he's just lying there beside her catching his breath, she stretches like a cat and lets out this little sound that he's pretty sure could get him going again pretty quick, but then she hops off the bed and starts talking about her plans with Kurt and Davis and the girls. She's pulling on fresh panties and looking at the dresses hanging in her closet, and suddenly he's so fucking pissed off he can barely see straight.

He doesn't say a word to her while he gets dressed, and she just watches curiously until he walks out of her room. "Noah, what's wrong?" she asks, following him into the hallway and down the stairs. "Noah?"

He ignores her, slamming out the front door and backing out of her driveway way to fast considering he knows there are little kids who live on her street.

(He really isn't sure if he's pissed off at her or himself.)

* * *

She texts him later to ask if he's okay, and he responds with _I'm cool, I just had to go_.

It's only half a lie.

He's decided that he's pissed off at her for being so fucking clueless. Then the logical part of his brain kicks in and he knows that he's really pissed off at himself.

So here's the thing: He likes Rachel. Like, he has feelings for her or whatever, and he fucking hates it. She made it crystal clear when they started this that it was just sex between friends, and he isn't supposed to want her for more than that. He isn't supposed to want to listen to her talk about...well, anything. He isn't supposed to wonder what's going on in her head when she gets quiet. He isn't supposed to want to hold her hand or hug her when she's sad or sleep next to her.

He's completely fucked in the head.

He'd stuck with his decision not to pursue Rachel, not to try to convince her to be with him again, but he knows he isn't much of an actor. He's a hell of a liar when he wants to be, but he isn't an actor, and he knows that he's shown her his hand more than once this summer. It pisses him off that she hasn't noticed. It pisses him off that he expects her to have noticed.

Goddamn it, he's been spending too much fucking time with her, because that shit doesn't even make sense.

(Except there's part of him that thinks it does.)

* * *

It's been five days since she's seen Noah. It's the longest she's gone without seeing him since summer began, and it's strange. Not the not seeing him, necessarily, but the fact that she really _misses _him. It isn't the sex. (Though the sex is incredible, and she can't really imagine turning it down.) She doesn't need sex, however much she likes it. No, what she misses is spending time with him, just sitting in her room or driving somewhere in his truck or whatever. She watched an entire television series on DVD with Tina this summer, and she still spent more time with Noah than anyone else, even if you don't count naked time. Without him around, she's spending an awful lot of time alone.

She really has no idea what happened, though she's astute enough to gather that he's avoiding her. He came over, they had sex, and he left abruptly. She can't think of anything she might have said or done to make him react the way that he did, so part of her is pissed off. Avoiding her without telling her why is childish and ridiculous, and she deserves better than that as his friend.

Part of her just misses him.

He's not answering most of her texts, and when she tries to call he ignores her. (Literally. It goes to voice mail after the second ring, and she isn't stupid.) She gets annoyed and decides that she should just go to him, go to his house and make him listen to what she has to say.

(She has no idea what she wants to say, but she knows that she wants to see him.)

His mom lets her in, telling Rachel to go on up to Noah's room as she leads Abby out of the house dressed in her softball gear. She hears the quiet strumming of his guitar as she goes upstairs, and when she walks into Noah's room, he's leaned back against the headboard playing lazily. He rolls his eyes when he sees her standing at the foot of his bed, and her annoyance surges.

"Hello, Noah."

"'Sup?"

She rolls her eyes at the short greeting. "It's good to see that you're still breathing since you've been ignoring me all week."

"I texted you yesterday." He's still strumming slowly, not really looking at her. He's not really looking at anything.

"I asked if you wanted to come over and you told me you were 'getting drunk with the guys' in a message that didn't include a single complete word," she counters, rolling her eyes. She might be a child of the digital generation, but she hates text speak and abbreviations, and he knows it.

He shrugs lazily, but doesn't say anything. She really doesn't understand why he's behaving this way, but it infuriates her. "What is your problem?" she demands, and he finally looks up at her. "After everything we've done this summer, you're avoiding me and making excuses not to see me?"

"It isn't like we're dating, Rachel," he tells her hotly. "We don't have to see each other every day."

"Of course we don't, but we've been seeing each other pretty damn frequently, and then you start pulling this!" she counters, gesturing at the way he's lying on the bed and looking at her like she's stupid. It's infuriating.

He stands up and puts his guitar on the stand in the corner. "Don't act like you fucking care about seeing me."

She gapes. "What?"

"You're horny!" he shouts. It sounds like an accusation. "You came over here because you want me to fuck you, right? Get naked then. Let's go!"

"Don't talk to me like that," she tells him lowly. It stings a little, hearing him speak to her like this. If it was anyone else, she'd be furious, but since it's him and he's never been like this to her, it hurts.

"It's the fucking truth, isn't it?" He throws up his hands and glares at her.

"No!" she yells. "It isn't the _fucking _truth, and I can't believe you'd think it was!" She gathers her hair in one hand and pulls it over her shoulder because it's hot in his room. He's trying to make her mad, trying to hurt her. She'd hate to admit that it's working. "I miss you, okay? Not sex with you," she adds when she sees him about to speak, "but _you_."

He scoffs and shakes his head. "Whatever."

"Don't 'whatever' me," she snaps, feeling a little like someone's mother. "We're friends, Noah, and I don't like the way this feels, you ignoring me." Her voice is softer, and she's feeling just slightly less annoyed with him when he meets her eyes. "We both go back to school in less than two weeks, and you're avoiding me? We're fighting about something that I don't even know we're fighting about? That's stupid."

It is stupid, and that's what makes her mad. She just wants to be what they have been all summer for the next two weeks, and she doesn't really want to think about what she'll do when she gets back to school and doesn't see him every day. She hadn't really taken the time to think about it before, but the last few days sort of forced her to. She doesn't like it. She thinks that leaving Lima will be harder than it should be, harder than it was before, because last time, she didn't feel like she was leaving someone behind.

And it's that exact moment, standing in Noah's messy bedroom, fighting with him because he's been a jerk, that she realizes that this thing they've been doing? It isn't as platonic as she intended. There's something more between them, something that she hasn't even noticed before.

Then he opens his mouth, and she forgets what she was thinking when he infuriates her.

"Thanks for telling me how you really think of me, Rachel. It's great to hear how stupid you think I am."

"Shut up," she bites out, and even though she hates the phrase, she means it right now. "I do not think you're stupid, I think you're being stupid. There's an enormous difference and I don't appreciate you putting words in my mouth."

He smirks, and she knows he's thinking something dirty.

She rolls her eyes. "I just don't understand what changed," she says after a moment.

He watches her for a moment, then lets out a sigh. "Nothing, I guess," he says with a shrug. "I'm just an asshole."

"Noah." She's never let him get away with things like this before, and she's not going to start now. She wants to understand, and she isn't going to let it go until he explains it to her.

"What do you want me to say, Rach?" He looks defeated, and she softens, walking around the end of the bed so they're standing face to face with nothing between them.

"I just want to know why you're avoiding me."

She really, really shouldn't be surprised when he kisses her instead of answering the question, but it catches her off guard, and before she's really aware of what's happening, he's laying her on the bed and tugging at her dress with his hands. "Noah, wait."

"Shut up," he growls against her neck. She wants to hate it, but then he slips his hand into the front of her panties and her mind sort of hazes over the way it only ever does when she's with him.

She doesn't have another coherent thought until she's caught her breath and is lying under the covers, where he put her, with his chest pressed against her back. "Noah?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you start avoiding me?"

She feels his sigh more than she hears it. "I guess..." He swears under his breath. "Fuck, Rach, I actually care about you, and this is all going to be over when we go back to school." She tries to roll over so she can turn and face him, but he murmurs, "Don't," and squeezes her hip.

She takes a breath and lets her eyes fall on his open closet. It's surprisingly tidy, all of the clothes hung neatly though his shoes are scattered over the floor. "I care about you too, Noah," she finally says softly. "I really did miss you this week."

"Yeah?"

"Of course I did," she whispers. The hand he has resting on her hip slides around her body and between her legs. "Oh," she breathes when the pad of his middle finger brushes against her clit. "Noah."

He moves them both so she's on her back and he's lying half on top of her. "I haven't had you all week," he murmurs, his lips trailing over her chest.

"But we need to-_oh_," she gasps when he slips a finger inside her. "Talk," she finishes, arching her hips into his hand.

"Later." He dips his head to swipe his tongue over her nipple, and she decides that later sounds just fine.

* * *

He has her three times before they get dressed again, and then she insists that they have to talk about what just happened. (Puck thinks it's pretty obvious that "what just happened" is that he got her off better than anyone else can, but he keeps his mouth shut and puts on pants.)

They go to the drive-in restaurant that Puck thinks of as theirs now too, because he only ever comes here with her, and after they've ordered and the carhop leaves them to put in their order, she turns to look at him across the bench seat of his truck. He hates the way his stomach clenches before she starts talking. (He decides it's because he's hungry.)

"I really hate that you were avoiding me," she says seriously.

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that." It makes him feel like a dick, but, fuck, he didn't know how to deal.

"Noah, I think..." She trails off and takes a deep breath. "I think this has become more than just sex."

He doesn't know what to say to that. It's always been more than just sex, even if she didn't know it. So he doesn't say anything, just nods.

"It's just that we both go back to school in a week. It's terrible timing to realize that this," she gestures between them, "is more than what we thought it was."

"So nothing changes," he says, catching on. "We go back to school and that's that."

She shakes her head and smiles a little. "I don't want us to not be friends again. I don't want it to be like last year when we didn't talk at all."

"Even though you were thinking about me," he says with a wicked grin. She'd slipped up and told him that she'd spent the whole year thinking about him and comparing sex with the dude she dated to sex with Puck. No fucking way he was going to forget that.

"Right," she agrees, rolling her eyes and smiling. "Columbus and Oberlin are only two hours apart, and we'll see each other on breaks too."

"So we can still have sex."

She laughs. "Exactly. Nothing has to change. We just won't be sleeping together as often. No expectations, no guilt," she says, repeating the phrase that really began what they've been doing all summer.

It makes sense, really, since they live in different cities. It isn't like they can have a real relationship being long-distance. Fuck, he isn't sure that he's capable of having a real relationship at all, even if he doesn't hate the idea. Maybe he'll be able to stop wanting her so much if he doesn't see her all the time.

(Because that worked so well last year.)

"So we'll keep doing what we're doing," he says, and his stomach does that weird thing again when he sees the relief on her face.

"I think it's for the best." She glances down at her hands in her lap, then looks at him through her eyelashes. "But we should definitely make the most of the time we have left."

He wishes they hadn't ordered food, because now all he can think about is making her show him how she intends to "make the most" of their time.

* * *

He asks her to stay with him on Saturday night. His mom is working nights, and Abby's staying with a friend, and since Rachel is moving into her apartment on Monday, she agrees. With the exception of a few short naps, she's only ever _slept _with Noah a few times, but since this will be her last chance to be with him for however long, she doesn't think too much about it.

"You know," she murmurs, "I'm really going to miss you." The room is dark, and she's lying with her head on his chest, tracing nonsensical patterns on his skin with her fingertips.

"Yeah," he says, and she knows he means 'me too.'


	5. Chapter 5

Rachel has told him all about how awesome it is to have her own place, but Puck doesn't hate having a roommate. Adam lived on his floor in the dorms last year, they played on the same intramural football team, and they'd hung out a few times, playing X-Box or hitting parties. They both figured that was enough basis to move in together when they were both looking for roommates, and even though he's tried to explain that things are just different for dudes, Rachel insists on telling him that he's "incredibly lucky Adam isn't abhorrent" because apparently she's heard horror stories from some of her friends. Whatever. They have an unspoken agreement to take turns doing chores like loading the dishwasher and taking out the trash, and verbal agreements about not eating each other's food and doing their best not to fuck up each other's game, and it's a good system. It works for them.

Not that Puck has brought anyone back to the apartment since school started.

Yeah, it's fucking weird.

The conversation that he and Rachel had before she went back to school, sitting in the cab of his truck at that restaurant: It accomplished exactly nothing. Nothing was clarified, so nothing changed. The thing between them (he refuses to call it a relationship) is basically the same as it was before that conversation. They both admitted that they "care" about each other (which is basically meaningless as far as he can tell), and they they agreed that they should just keep being fuck buddies, even long-distance.

Having a long-distance fuck buddy who you actually have feelings for? It fucking sucks. (And honestly? It makes him feel like a fucking pussy.)

He knows it's probably better this way. Her saying that she cares about him doesn't mean that she wants to _be _with him, just that she doesn't want him to die and she's gonna keep letting him get her off. And even if it did mean something more than that, he's not a relationship dude, and he's sure as fuck not a long-distance relationship dude. He'd just manage to screw it up somehow if they tried.

So, maybe he thinks he could be the relationship guy with Rachel. And they already have this long-distance _thing_. What the fuck ever, it isn't what she wants, so he's not even going to let himself think about it. He'd just end up making himself as crazy as she is, and he's pretty sure it won't be nearly as endearing on him, 'cause crazy chicks can be hot and crazy dudes are just scary.

So they text and IM and talk on the phone quite a bit, and none of it is really enough. She refuses to naked Skype with him (It's a stellar idea, no matter what she says, and he's not giving up on it yet.), but the phone sex is pretty fucking good. This girl knows _words_, and she has this one tone of voice that makes him think of honey (and, now, sex), and Rachel Berry is so not the prude he always thought she was in high school. It still isn't good enough, but it's better than nothing, so he isn't complaining too much.

All of that isn't to say that he doesn't notice other girls. He does. He just catches himself comparing them to Rachel, and it freaks him out so much that it basically shut shim down. One weekend he's at a party, flirting with this girl and thinking about trying to close the deal because he's drunk and horny and Rachel's two hours away, but then his phone buzzes in his pocket, and it's a text from Rachel telling him that she wants to "talk to him" at one in the morning, and that only means one thing. So he ditches the girl and goes home and calls her so he can come in his own hand with her moaning in his ear through the phone. It's tipsy, almost sloppy phone sex that reminds him of having tipsy, almost sloppy ireal/i sex with her, and even after they've hung up it keeps him awake and half-hard until he goes to the kitchen and takes a pull off the bottle of cheap vodka in the freezer that he and Adam take turns replacing so he can pass out.

She's basically ruining him, but he sure as fuck isn't going to tell her that. Mostly because as much as he hates it, he still doesn't really want anyone else. And no, he isn't going to tell her that either. He isn't interested in fucking up this thing they have going on. It's probably the only way he's going to have her, and he's working on convincing himself that it's enough.

She admits that she misses him towards the end of September. They're talking on the phone, having a real conversation instead of a dirty one, and Puck's cleaning up the kitchen while they talk since Adam's at his night class. They started out talking about Finn's breakup with Fiona and how much Puck hates studying World War II in his history class, but their conversation, just like all of their conversations, eventually made its way to sex, and now she's trying to figure out when they'll be able to see each other next.

"When are you going back to Lima?" she asks.

He finishes rinsing the dishes in the sink and starts stacking them in the dishwasher. "Probably not until Thanksgiving," he tells her, smirking when she lets out a little groan. "Really, Rach?" She still has shy moments when it comes to sex, but for the most part, she's pretty up front about what she wants and what she's thinking, and he knows she's horny. She's not a fan of that word, so she has a whole bunch of euphemisms, and she's used practically all of them in the last ten minutes of this one conversation. Totally fucking transparent.

"I would just come to Columbus, but the way my class schedule worked out this semester, Saturday afternoon was the only time I could fit in my ballet class," she explains. He already knows this, just like he knows the rest of her class schedule and she knows his. "I can justify missing class for a trip home, but not for a trip to see my friends and have sex."

"But seeing your dads and having sex - that would be okay?" He's smiling as he dumps detergent in the dishwasher and closes the door.

"Yes." She says it so matter of factly that he has to laugh, and hearing her huff into the phone just makes him laugh harder. "Noah! It isn't funny."

"It's a little funny." Actually, he thinks it's fucking hot that crazy-about-her-schedule Rachel Berry wants to skip a dance class to have sex with him. He'll tell her later, because there's no way he's letting her off this phone without hearing her get off, but he wants to see her too, so he's going to wait until they figure out a way to make that happen to change the subject.

"It isn't," she insists. "I miss you, and I hate it."

His breath catches for just a second, but he recovers pretty quickly. "Whatever, you just miss my cock."

"You know that isn't what I meant." Her voice is quiet, different than the tone of their conversation has been up till now. This is her serious voice, not her joking voice, and she doesn't even comment on the fact that he said cock. (This girl digs on dirty talk in bed, but sometimes she takes issue with his "vulgar language," as if she thinks commenting about it is going to make him stop.)

He tosses the sponge he was using to wipe off the stovetop into the sink and leans against the counter. "Yeah?"

"Of course I miss you," she says softly. "And now I won't see you for two more months?"

"Fuck that," he says flatly. "I'll come there."

"What?"

He didn't really think before he spoke, but when he takes a second to pause, he realizes that he means it, and it's not such a crazy idea, really. He wants to see her, she's telling him she can't go anywhere, and he isn't doing anything important this weekend. (Or any weekend, honestly. Getting drunk is fun, but it isn't important, and it's not like he's using these parties to get laid like he probably should be.)

"I could come there," he repeats, then smirks. "If you miss me that bad."

"Noah," she giggles. "Surely you have better things to do with your weekend."

He scoffs. "Better than seeing you naked and making you scream my name? Not fucking likely." He isn't exactly sure that anything he just said was _funny_, but she's laughing anyway and he doesn't really mind. Not too much. "What d'ya think?"

She's quiet for a moment, thinking, then says, "I think it's an excellent idea."

"Cool. I'll head out on Friday after class." She makes a little noise of agreement, that easy, and he decides that it's time to change the subject. It's been a couple days since he's heard her voice get all breathless and soft, and he absolutely needs to hear that happen right now. "What're you wearing, baby?" he asks, walking into his room and kicking the door closed while she lets out a breathy little laugh and tells him about her tank top and boy shorts.

* * *

It's a really good thing his truck has cruise control, because it's truly the only thing that keeps him from speeding like a fucking idiot the entire way Friday afternoon. He's still speeding, for sure, but they aren't going to haul his ass to jail if he does get pulled over. He's always had a lead foot, and sue him for being a little anxious to get laid for the first time in weeks. And he's basically resigned himself to the fact that it's definitely more than sex that he misses with Rachel; he isn't going to admit it out loud if he can help it, but he actually wants to spend time with her, naked or not. He wants to see the way corners of her eyes crinkle when she laughs, catch the scent of her shampoo when she lets her hair down. Fuck, that's been the truth since summer started, maybe before, no matter how much he wants to ignore it.

He tries to stop thinking about it while he drives, blasting the radio and focusing on the highway in front of him, but driving is one of those things that gives you a lot of time to _think_, and by the time he drives into her town, he's glad to see her just so he can stop thinking about her.

He spares a thought for how fucked up his brain is when he parks in her apartment complex, grabbing his bag off the passenger seat and going inside and up a flight of stairs to knock on the door he knows is hers (203). She answers in skinny jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt and bare feet, launching herself into his arms before either of them say anything. "Hi," she murmurs against his neck. He'd called her as he was leaving Columbus, and he lets himself think that maybe, just maybe, she's been as anxious for his arrival during his drive as he was.

"Hey." They're standing in her doorway, halfway out in the hall. She's all pressed against him, her breath warm against his skin, and since he's been on the edge of turned on since he drove out of the city, he can feel his body begin to react to the closeness. He runs his hands up and down her back, letting them tangle a little in her hair a little as he inhales her scent, expensive shampoo and the brightness of her perfume. "Baby."

She pulls back enough to kiss him, sinking into it just a bit before pulling away and tugging him into her living room to close the door. "How was your drive?"

"Felt long," he answers honestly. He doesn't want to talk to her, not now. Now he wants to get her naked and make her moan, and the way her eyes darken when he tells her is possibly the sexiest fucking thing he's ever seen her do with clothes on. (Okay, not true. She's gone down on him fully dressed, so that probably beats this, but that was before and this is right now. And it's completely fucked up that he's thinking so hard when she's right in front of him with those eyes.)

They don't get to her bedroom, making it only as far as her couch, and he'd feel guilty for it if he didn't know they have all weekend to take their time. And actually, he thinks this is just the first step to christening her apartment the way it deserves.

It's been long enough that her muscles have changed, tightened a little, and when he pushes into her for the first time in weeks, she lets out this noise that sounds like she's in pain and tightens her grip on his bicep until it almost hurts. He stills his hips, though he thinks it might kill him, lowering his head to sip at her lips until her fingers loosen and she murmurs, "just be nice," against his lips. He knows her, so he knows what she means, and he starts moving slowly, shallowly, just until she begins meeting his thrusts and asking him for more, and then it's like it hasn't been any time at all since they've been together like this.

"Every weekend should start like this," she says thoughtfully. They're still lying on the couch, covered with the throw blanket she's tugged over them, even though it's not really big enough to keep them both warm. They're lying face to face with her body between his and the back of the couch, their legs tangled together as she trails one hand up and down his back.

"Fuck right, it should." He leans forward and kisses her slowly, letting out a (completely involuntary) moan when she slips her tongue into his mouth.

She pulls away, lowering her head a little when he chases her lips. "I was thinking that tonight, we could stay in," she murmurs, glancing up at him from beneath her eyelashes. "Unless you'd rather go out."

He doesn't say anything, standing up and tugging the blanket with him, ignoring her protests as she's left laid out on the couch, naked and still a little flushed in the chest from what they did. Fuck, she's gorgeous. "Let's go to bed, baby."

She starts laughing and glances over at the clock on a shelf in the corner. "It's not even six o' clock."

He takes another second to enjoy the way she looks, lying there like that, then grabs her arm and pulls her until she's standing next to him. "So?"

"Compelling argument," she says dryly. It never fails to crack him up, the way she can have a completely normal conversation when they're both totally naked.

"C'mon, baby." It's weak, and it's less of an argument than "so" was, but apparently she doesn't care, because she brushes past him walking toward the hallway, glancing over her shoulder at him when he doesn't follow right away.

* * *

They don't leave the apartment on Saturday; they barely leave her bed. (Neither of them mentions that she's skipping her ballet class even though she really didn't mean to. Hell, the whole point of him coming here was so she wouldn't skip class.)

She thinks it's wonderful.

She hasn't admitted it to him, but she's caught herself feeling lonely far more often than usual since she came back to school, and she doesn't know how to explain it. Yes, she spent a good portion of her childhood feeling lonely, but she's learned to enjoy her own company in the last couple of years, and this is different. It isn't living alone; she loves having her own space and not having to consider someone else's schedule or habits when she wants to do something. Living alone, for Rachel, is about solitude, not loneliness. She has plenty of acquaintances and a couple of good friends here, but her most meaningful relationships are still with people who live hours away, so maybe that's some of it. She's certainly aware that there's a little part of her that's thinking about Allie and all of the silly little things the girls had come to share. It's one thing to lose someone when you drift away, like the she still logically believes she and Allie would have, but it's entirely another when that person is gone forever. When she puts it all together, apparently it adds up to spending too much time thinking about how _alone _she is.

"Why you gotta think so loud?" Noah mutters, eying her curiously from where he's lying on his stomach beside her with the blankets bunched around his hips. It doesn't actually make sense, but she knows what he means. It's far from the first time he's said it to her.

She lets herself sink a little deeper into her pillows. "Sorry." It's somewhere around midnight, and they've both been sort of dozing for a while. The room is dark except for the dimmed lamp on her bedside table and a bit of moonlight peeking through the lightweight curtains on her window, and she'd thought that he was actually asleep this time.

"What's up?" he asks, stretching a little before shifting to lie on his side and look at her.

She shakes her head a bit. "Nothing." It's a lie, but she wouldn't even know how to begin to explain the truth to him. She brushes her fingertips over his cheekbone and pretends not to notice the way he's looking at her, as if he wants to figure her out. "I like you here," she tells him after a moment.

"Yeah?" She nods, scooting closer to him so their legs are tangled together, and his lips brush her forehead. "I like me here, too." He's quiet, and if he was anyone else she might describe this moment as soft. She's only ever seen him like this when he's half-asleep, but she thinks it's sweet.

When he leans over her to reach for the bedside table, she thinks that he's grabbing a condom. (She isn't sure which of them is more paranoid about contraception; he has a past, and she's terrified of getting pregnant. Either way, they haven't slipped once since that time back at the beginning of summer in her shower.) Instead, he flicks off the lamp and pushes at her shoulder until she takes the hint and turns so her back is against his chest. They've spent an entire day in bed, and that's been long enough for her to figure out that he's a fan of spooning, something she thinks she should have noticed before, even if they hadn't fallen asleep together much before today. She doesn't hate it at all, especially not when he presses his lips against the back of her shoulder. It surprises her, honestly, because she's never been a cuddler before, quite the opposite, and it's certainly not something she would expect out of Puck.

"Go to sleep," he orders, muttering against her skin and letting his hand rest on her hip beneath the blankets.

There's a small piece of her brain that's having a panic attack about the intimacy of all of this, but she ignores it and everything else and does what she's told, dropping off to sleep.

* * *

They actually get out of bed on Sunday, leaving the apartment to go to lunch at a cafe she thinks he'll like (he does), after which she drives them to a little park that she's completely in love with. The air is cool, but they haven't had a killing frost yet, so the fall flowers are still blooming even though the trees are beginning to lose their leaves, and they sit together on Rachel's favorite bench that looks out over a little pond. She pulls her legs up, leaving her ballet flats on the grass, and crosses them Indian-style. Noah rests his hand on the inside of the thigh closest to him, his thumb moving back and forth slowly.

Neither of them says anything for a long time, but it's a comfortable sort of silence that's still kind of new to Rachel. She's always been the girl who has to fill the air with words, but she thinks she might be growing out of it somewhat. Or maybe it's because she's with Noah. He makes her feel calmer, more relaxed and less scattered, though she can't explain why. She doesn't want to think about it, but she finds that she can't help it. She may be learning to turn off her mouth, but she's still years away from being able to turn off her mind. Possibly that will never happen.

"What are you thinking about so hard?" he asks, nudging her with his shoulder. She looks up at him, and in this light, his eyes look almost amber. It's the second time he's asked this sort of question in as many days, and she wishes that he wasn't so perceptive. Or, maybe, that she wasn't so transparent.

"Nothing," she lies. She knows he can tell from the way he looks at her, but he doesn't call her on it, just raises his eyebrows for a second before looking back out across the water. She's grateful to him for letting it go, for not pushing her when she actually gets quiet. It's like he understands that sometimes she needs that time. "Thank you for coming this weekend."

"Thank iyou/i for coming," he counters with a smirk, making her scoff. "Seriously." His expression softens and his hand drifts a little higher on her thigh, and even though she's wearing jeans, she has to fight off a shudder. Her body just ireacts/i to him no matter what. "I missed you or whatever."

There's a little flutter somewhere behind her sternum. Even after she admitted to missing him, he hadn't returned the sentiment. She thought it was probably true, but years of having her heart stepped on have taught her not to assume anything about someone else's feelings, especially a boy like Noah. It's good to know that her feelings are reciprocated.

Neither of them says anything for a while, not until Noah nudges her with his shoulder again. "Let's go," he says. "You've been wearing clothes for too long."

* * *

She walks him out to his truck when he leaves later that evening, lets him pin her against the driver's side door and kiss her breathless. (It reminds her of that night, which feels like ages ago, when she finally gave in and they left Sam and Quinn's rehearsal dinner together.) She finally pulls away, ducking under his arm to get away from him and wrapping her arms around herself against the twilight chill. "Drive carefully."

He nods, then presses his lips against hers once more. "Get your ass inside so I can leave," he tells her, and it makes her laugh a little as she turns and walks across the lot. She stops just inside the exterior entrance to her building, watching through the window as his tail lights disappear down the street.

She locks the door behind her like always when she gets up to her apartment, but it feels different this time. It just seems so quiet in here, too quiet, even though she knows, intellectually, that it's exactly the same as it always is. Except, for the last few days, it's been full of Noah, and now it's empty and silent and...different.

She turns on the television just for the background noise while she cleans up the apartment, washing the sink full of dishes left from the weekend, changing the sheets on the bed, and even scrubbing the bathroom when she realizes that she has too much restless energy to make herself sit and do her reading for class. Noah texts her when he makes it back to Columbus; she'd asked him to because she has a tendency to worry, and she's fairly certain she wouldn't have been able to sleep without confirmation that he'd made it back safely.

As it is, she struggles to fall asleep that night, even after drinking chamomile tea and spritzing her comforter with a lavender essence mist that always helps her relax. No matter how many times she orders herself to stop thinking about it, the bed seems too large, too cold, and she thinks it's absolutely insane. She _likes _slipping between cool sheets, likes being able to sleep right in the middle of the mattress, and the fact that sharing this bed with Noah just twice is affecting her like this is absurd.

She does fall asleep, finally, but it's a restless sleep from which she keeps waking. She gives up when her eyes blink open at 5:17, climbing out of bed and starting her day hours before she intended because she just can't stand lying here any more.

It's ironic, she knows, and when it's working against her, she hates irony.


	6. Chapter 6

Just a week later - a fucking _week _- he fucks it up. God, the whole thing is fucked up, but somehow it's his fault and he ends up being the one who feels like a douche.

Mike Chang is the one who brings up the flip cup tournament their friend Jake is hosting at his place. Apparently it's going to be this huge thing, because after Puck agrees to play (and convinces Adam to be their fourth after Mike gets Sam on board), he starts hearing about it all over campus.

He hasn't actually even gotten to _talk _to Rachel since he left her apartment on Sunday. She had some ridiculous exam in one class, and this huge group project due in another, so she was crazy busy, and he's been caught up in school too, so they keep playing phone tag. They manage to text, but it's always when one of them is sitting in class or should be paying attention to something else, so it isn't anything at all like talking to her. Fuck, they don't even manage to sext, and it's really screwing with him. He just spent a whole weekend in her bed (basically), and now the only way he can even hear her is when she leaves him a voice mail? It all makes him miss her more, and it's fucked up.

It's kind of a weird time of the semester for this kind of blowout, just after midterms but well before finals, which, actually, is probably why it gets so monstrous. Tina drops them off with instructions to call whenever they're ready to go home, and the first thing Puck thinks when they walk into the house is that there's no fucking way this party isn't going to get busted by the cops. The second thing he thinks is that there are enough people here that his chances of actually getting nailed with an MIP are slim, so he's not going to worry about it.

There's a huge bracket drawn on the wall in the basement (literally, they're writing in black Sharpie on the white drywall, which is probably a terrible idea), and four different tables set up with games being played simultaneously. There are two kegs down here and one up in the kitchen, and since part of his agreement to play in this tournament was based on Chang paying the five bucks for him to drink, Puck starts sipping beer immediately. He plays flip cup better when he's buzzed anyhow.

They make it through the first three rounds pretty easily, but get knocked out when they lose to a team of chicks in the fourth round, mostly because Sam is absolutely shitcanned. He doesn't go out as much now that he has the ball and chain, not that he ever really did, and between chugging during the game and sucking back who knows how much between rounds, he's blitzed. They aren't doing a losers bracket because the game isn't even halfway over in round four, but that's probably a good thing. Sam is babbling about Quinn and flashing his ring around to drunk strangers like they haven't been together for years and married for months. If the dude wasn't one of his best friends, and he didn't love Quinn like a sister, Puck would call Sam out for being totally fucking pussy whipped. Instead, he just takes Sam's phone and finds Q's name in the contacts so Sam can talk to to her because he's too completely drunk to even hit the right speed dial number.

It's actually pretty embarrassing, and he will never, ever let Sam live this down.

When Puck helps Sam out to the car, Quinn insists that she'll be able to get him up the two flights of stairs to their apartment, so Puck goes back inside to take advantage of free beer, and the way he's drinking, it doesn't take too long for him to be nearly as drunk as Sam.

He's sitting out on the back porch railing with Adam when this little brunette walks up and says, "You look like the kind of guy who can keep a girl warm."

It's a shit awful line, but this chick is smoking hot and obviously drunk since she's out in forty-five degree weather in a tank top and doesn't even have goosebumps on her bare arms. Her hair is long and wavy, and she's short enough that he has a perfect view down her shirt at her totally fantastic tits. "Maybe," he says with a shrug after a pause so long she should've walked away.

He has no idea what the fuck comes out of her mouth, or his for that matter, but the next thing he knows, she's standing between his legs with her hands on his thighs to keep her steady, and her tongue is in his mouth, and he has no idea how he's even managing to balance here when he's _this drunk_, but fuck if he's going to question it.

The rest of the night is sort of blurry. He remembers Adam snagging some blonde as she walked past and saying some really fucking dirty shit to her loud enough that Puck heard and laughed. He knows that Chang and Adam left (blonde in tow, and she's obviously a fucking slut if she's going home with him after he said _that_) because Puck told them to "tell Goth she's the fucking best." He remembers the brunette (Leslie? Laney? Whatever.) telling him that she lives two blocks away and that if they cut through yards, they can be in her room, naked, in less than five.

He wants to fucking die the next morning when sunlight streams across his face and wakes him up. Then he opens his eyes and sees that he's in bed with a naked brunette that is most definitely _not _the brunette whose bed he wants to be in. He sees a used condom in the waste basket next to her bed, and now he doesn't just want to die, he wants to fucking kill himself. He doesn't know where the hell he is, but he doesn't want to be here, so he gets dressed and gets the fuck out of there without even looking at the girl he woke up next to.

Once he gets outside, he realizes two things. One, he's only about six blocks from his apartment, so he can walk home, and two, he's definitely still drunk. Still drunk beats hungover any day, so he shoves his hands in his pockets against the early morning chill and gets his ass moving down the sidewalk towards his apartment. Once there, he makes a box of mac and cheese (who gives a rat's ass that it's not even eight in the morning?), which he eats directly out of the pan, and then passes out, fully dressed, on top of his bed.

Shit hits the fan later that afternoon when he _is _hungover.

The buzzing of his phone in his pocket is what wakes him up, and honest to God, he only answers it because the sound is making his head pound. "'lo?"

"What the fuck did you do last night?"

He groans, his eyes still squeezed shut. Someday, he'll learn to close his blinds before he goes out drinking. "Don't yell."

Tina ignores him and absolutely fucking _screeches _his name. "What the fuck did you do last night?" she repeats.

"Uh, I got fucking wasted," he says. Is she stupid?

"Did you have sex with that girl?"

"What?"

She swears under her breath, and even though Tina's never had a problem with swearing (like Quinn and Rachel both used to), he has never heard her go off like this. "Last night, when I picked up Mike and your roommate, they told me you had your tongue down some chick's throat. Did you have sex with her?" She enunciates each word carefully, her voice sharp enough that he thinks it might literally be piercing into his eardrum.

The night comes rushing back at her words, and he groans, wincing as it makes his head feel like it's splitting open. Well, more than it already was. She must take this as confirmation, because he can hear her scoff. "What about Rachel, Puck?"

"What about her? It's not like we're dating."

"Puck, be serious," Tina snaps. "You can't tell me it's just sex. I know better than that. I know both of _you _better than that. You really care about each other."

"Yeah, Rachel really cares about me," he says sarcastically. If she cared, they'd be together instead of doing what they're doing. "What the fuck do you know anyway?" he demands. He's pissed off at Tina for sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. Who he fucks - whether it's Rachel or someone else - is none of her goddamn business.

"Puck-"

"No, goddamn it," he interrupts.

"You're an asshole."

"That's not news," he retorts.

She scoffs. "So you're telling me that you don't actually care about Rachel beyond having sex with her?"

"I'm just giving her what she wants," he answers tiredly, and it's the first thing he's said that hasn't been nasty or half-sarcastic. Because it's absolutely the truth. If he had his way, he would have Rachel, but she made it super-clear a long time ago that she doesn't want anything serious, so he's taking what he can get and keeping his goddamn mouth shut about it.

"You are so incredibly stupid."

"Thanks, T," he says, then he hits the end button and tosses the phone across the room onto a pile of laundry in the corner.

_Fuck_.

Even though it hurts to think, he tries to remember why he actually agreed to go home with this chick whose name he legitimately does not remember. He really has no idea, honest to fuck. He really doesn't even remember _having _sex, though he assumes it must have happened. He glances at the clock and thinks about what he was doing this time last week: Lying in Rachel's bed, most likely naked. Fuck, that'll probably never happen again, because there's no way Tina isn't going to tell Rachel exactly what he did last night. She's probably telling her right now.

But you know what? This is kind of Rachel's fault. At least, he thinks he could blame at least part of it on her.

That's such bullshit.

Lying there in the middle of his bed, feeling absolutely miserable, he finally admits to himself that he _wants _her. He wants her to be his girl, to be able to say that she's his. He thinks he could fall in love with her. Shit, he wants to be with her more than he wants almost anything, and he knows, he _knows _he just completely destroyed any chance he has at that.

* * *

It hurts more than it should. Honestly, she shouldn't be surprised. People don't change, and it was foolish of her to believe that a man like Noah would be satisfied with sex just every few weeks. And besides that, they never discussed exclusivity. She took for granted that because she wasn't sleeping with anyone else, neither was he, but for all she knows, he's been sleeping with a different woman every night since he got back to school. (All right, she knows that isn't the case. He told her so, and he certainly wouldn't lie to her so blatantly.)

She isn't angry, but she is hurt.

She would rather be angry.

There's a productive sort of energy to anger, a tangible that you can channel into something useful or at least cathartic. Hurt, however, you just have to deal with and accept. It's infinitely easier to be angry, and she knows she would get over it more quickly. Of course, her hurt does have an edge of anger: She's angry that she's feeling hurt. (Awesome.)

She's curled up on the couch in her pajamas watching _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ when he calls on Saturday afternoon. She lets out a breath, pauses Holly in the middle of her assessment of what is possibly the classiest stripper in film, and answers the phone with a simple, "Hi."

"Hey. What's up?"

"Not much." She doesn't want to do the small talk thing, but she doesn't really want to bring it up either. She wishes she hadn't answered the phone at all, but it's something of a compulsion for her. She never, ever ignores calls.

"You've talked to Tina." It isn't a question.

"Yes."

"Rach-"

"I'm not mad," she interrupts. She really, truly doesn't want to listen to him explain what happened. The last thing she wants is the details, because even though her imagination is already going crazy with the scant information she has, she knows it'll be infinitely worse if she hears any more.

"You aren't?" he asks incredulously.

"No expectations, no guilt, that was the agreement. We never talked about being exclusive, so it isn't as if I expected it," she lies, speaking quickly. He once told her he could see it in her eyes when she lied, but it's easier to do over the phone. "I'm not mad," she repeats, and that, at least, is the truth.

"I- I'm glad," he manages. She can hear the surprise in his voice. "But, Rachel, I was so drunk, I don't even remember it." She moves the phone away from her mouth so he can't hear her breathe. She's not so sure that his failure to remember makes her feel better. "I just...fuck. I really wish I hadn't done it."

She doesn't know what to say to that, so she doesn't say anything. Honestly, she wishes he hadn't done it either, because she's fairly certain that this is going to change things between them, however absurd that is. Maybe what they're doing isn't normal, nor is it completely healthy on an emotional level, she's sure, but it was working well enough. They're such good friends, and they're so good together physically, and she hates that she's losing all of that.

Rachel has no idea what to say, but she absolutely cannot be talking to him any more because there's a lump rising in her throat that isn't going away when she swallows. "Hey, Noah, my daddy's calling," she says, absolutely lying through her teeth. "I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"Yeah." He sounds resigned, and she knows he knows she's lying. "Later, Rach."

She hangs up without saying goodbye, which she never does, keeping her finger on the button until the phone powers down. She doesn't want to talk to anyone else. She feels hurt and foolish and ridiculous because of it, but she wants to be as alone as possible, and that won't be the case if her phone keeps buzzing at her. It's only a matter of time before she hears from Quinn and Kurt and everyone else, but she wants to delay the inevitable and be miserable in her own little bubble.

She unpauses her movie and watches Paul carry Holly up the stairs, but she has to stop it when they argue. Quite frankly, she thinks that Holly had the right idea when she went searching for the whiskey. Rachel doesn't have any whiskey in the apartment, but she has a bottle of vodka Santana sent to her as a housewarming gift in the freezer that hasn't been opened yet. She decides, as she's pouring the liquor together with pomegranate juice from her fridge, that Santana would approve, even if the gift was intended to be celebratory.

* * *

By the time he wakes on Sunday afternoon, his hangover is finally gone (and he's never been that hungover from beer before, which should be a clue as to how much he actually drank) and the events of Friday night are starting to clear up in his mind. It's kind of the only thing he's been able to think about, actually. And it's fucking ridiculous, but he's pretty sure he did it because he was missing Rachel.

Adam actually remembers the girl's name (Laurel, as if it matters), so they look her up on Facebook, and Puck sees that she has long, dark hair and brown eyes, so that makes sense even if it's fucked.

It's all been about missing Rachel lately, goddamn it. Apparently spending a weekend in her bed just made the missing her worse, which is so fucked that he just can't even wrap his mind around it.

Everybody's mad at him. Well, Tina and Quinn are mad at him, and Santana called him and yelled about what an asshole he is, and how Rachel's turned her phone off so she can't even talk to her and he should have known better - and then he hung up on her, so if she wasn't already pissed off at him, she definitely is now.

No one is as mad at him as he is at himself. If he hadn't been sure before, after talking to Rachel, he knows he's completely fucked up what they had going on.

He spends the entire week trying to call her. On Sunday, it goes straight to voice mail, which proves that Santana was telling the truth. He doesn't leave a message because he has no idea what to say. Really, he doesn't know what he's going to say if she ever does answer except "I'm sorry," and "I want you."

Actually, he's not sure he's actually able to tell her he wants her. He's said it enough before, more times than he could possibly count, but it's taken on an entirely different meaning, and it doesn't matter that she doesn't know that.

He keeps trying to call her, ignoring how desperate it must look when she sees his name come up on her screen over and over every day. She doesn't answer, but he doesn't give up. He calls her every day, right at six o' clock because he knows she doesn't have a class or a lesson or anything else going on at that time, and he just really, really wants her to talk to him. He doesn't bother with texts or emails or anything else because he knows that if she isn't answering the phone, she won't read those either.

She answers (_finally_) the next Monday, more than a week later. "Hello?"

"Well, it's good to know you aren't dead in a ditch somewhere," he says, obviously channeling some weird combination of his mother's Jewish guilt trips and Rachel's tendency to worry.

"I lost my phone. I was hoping I'd find it, but I finally broke down and got a new one today," she explains.

He's smiling when he says, "You know you can't lie for shit, right?" He hears her sigh, though she doesn't actually say anything. "It's okay. I know you've been ignoring me. I'd probably be ignoring me too if I was such a fuck up."

That doesn't make any fucking sense.

"I don't really know what to say." Her voice is quiet, and he wishes that instead of sounding almost sad, like she does, that she was mad. He could deal with mad.

"Yeah." He takes a deep breath. "I just miss you, Rachel, and I'm really sorry."

He hears her breath catch, and it makes him feel like an asshole. He'd realized that he hadn't apologized about thirty seconds after they'd hung up last week, and since he really is sorry, it made him feel like a jerk, and he'd been waiting to say it all week.

"Noah, I..." She takes a deep breath, then laughs just a little, though it sounds humorless. "I'm meeting a friend for dinner, and I just got to the restaurant." He knows she's lying, again. He can always hear the radio in the background when she talks in the car, and there's nothing there but silence. "We'll talk later, okay?"

"Yeah. Later."

"Bye."

He drops his phone on the floor at his side and lets his head drop to the back of the chair he's sitting in. Obviously, he not only destroyed whatever you would call his fucked up relationship with Rachel, he also destroyed their friendship if she doesn't even want to talk to him for more than five minutes.

* * *

She misses him.

God, it makes her crazy how much she misses him, but she just cannot bring herself to call him, and he isn't calling her any more. He hasn't called her in nearly a week. Not that she blames him, since she's avoided him so studiously, but she finds that she even misses that. She knows it's insane, but the fact that he was still calling was like validation; it was confirmation that he still cared.

She wants to talk about it. She does her best thinking, her best problem solving and figuring out, so to speak, when she talks things through, but there really isn't anyone to talk to. Tina thinks Noah behaved like an ass and shouldn't be forgiven. Quinn doesn't really understand how they were involved in such a casual relationship in the first place. Santana thinks that one of them was bound to hurt the others feelings since they've obviously been "tits over ass for each other" for years. They all three offered those opinions unsolicited, but Rachel thinks that all of the rest of her friends will fall in line with one of these views. In fact, she's pretty sure she already knows what each of them would say, and she isn't interested in hearing the varying responses within those themes.

So she keeps it all inside and doesn't talk to anyone, instead throwing herself into schoolwork and lessons and any other distractions that she can come up with. She's working out seven days a week, her apartment is spotless even by her own high standards, and she's doing extra credit work in classes that she's already acing. She's maintaining her relationships with cursory acquaintances, almost convincing herself that she doesn't need to talk to her friends.

And if she thought she was feeling lonely back when the semester first started, even she doesn't have a word for what she's feeling now.

That isn't really fair, because she knows she's isolating herself, but being unfair doesn't make it less true.

She's just gotten home from grocery shopping a few weeks after everything happened when her phone rings. She's gotten better at not answering the phone just because it rings, but she isn't really in the mood to talk - she just wants to put away her groceries and make dinner - but she checks the display in case it's her fathers. (They would worry if she didn't answer or call back promptly.) She's surprised by how happy she is when she sees that it's Brittany.

Brittany may be the only person who isn't going to want to talk about Noah.

Brittany listens as Rachel babbles about the performance she's working on for one of her classes, and Rachel's really happy when Brittany starts talking about a dance crew that she's thinking about joining at USC after Nationals in January when all of her free time isn't swallowed up by cheerleading. It's the most normal conversation she's had with any of her friends in weeks, and it's makes her feel wonderful. (It almost makes _her _feel normal.)

"Have you talked to Puck?" Brittany asks out of the blue. Honestly, they were discussing the merits of pedicures with crystal art, which couldn't be further away from the subject of Noah Puckerman if they tried.

Rachel lets out a little sigh and closes her eyes, leaning against the kitchen counter. Maybe talking about Noah was inevitable. She's always believed that Brittany was more perceptive than anyone realized, no matter how clueless she seemed, and while having the affirmation of that is somewhat validating, she really, really doesn't want to talk about this.

"No."

"Rachel-"

"Brittany, please," she interrupts. "I haven't talked to him, and I don't particularly want to talk about him either." Just because she seems to think about him every five minutes doesn't mean that she wants to talk about him, not anymore. She did, yes, but that was weeks ago. And she certainly doesn't want to talk to him either. (At least, that's what she's telling herself.)

Brittany doesn't say anything for a long moment, but Rachel can still hear the music that was playing in the background, so she knows the girl hasn't hung up. "Do you think he wanted to hurt you?"

"He didn't hurt me," she says quickly. Too quickly. She lets out a little huff and decides to just give up. Of all the people to admit the truth to, Brittany is the least likely to remember that she even said it, let alone hold it over her head later or try to use it against her. "I don't think he set out to hurt me, no, but Puck has never been the most thoughtful person."

"But you know he cares about you."

God, when Brittany says it, it sounds so simple. Rachel wishes it was that simple. "Just because people care doesn't mean that they don't hurt each other, Britt."

"And just because people hurt us doesn't mean they don't deserve to be forgiven, Rach."

She pauses for a moment, because that may be the most intelligent thing she's ever heard come out of the girl's mouth.

"Brittany-"

"Hey, so, if wine is made from grapes," Brittany interrupts, "how come grape soda doesn't get you drunk?"

When she hangs up thirty minutes later, Rachel has realized a few things. First, spending half an hour on the phone with Brittany Pierce is just as good as an ab workout; she hasn't laughed this much in ages. Second, even after all these years of knowing her, Rachel still isn't sure if Brittany is completely brilliant or the most ridiculous person on the face of the planet. Finally, she's done not talking to everyone, so she calls Tina, and after telling her firmly that she will not be discussing one Noah Puckerman, they spend an hour and a half chattering and catching up and laughing. It feels wonderful.

And the tiny voice in the back of her mind that tells her that Brittany was right and is begging her to call Noah and forgive him? She tells that voice to shut the fuck up.


	7. Chapter 7

She hates today.

It isn't as if it snuck up on her. She knew it was coming ages ago, back at the beginning of the semester when she sat down with her planner and her syllabi and started writing in due dates and performances and assignments and things to remember, and written there, in the hot pink ink she reserves for personal notes, was Allie's birthday on the first Thursday in November. And, honestly, her mood has been foul for the last week and a half.

It starts poorly. After a long, restless night (the latest in a long string of them), she somehow manages to sleep through her alarm, waking up just in time to pull on the first clothes she sees and rush to her first class. It's one of those clear, sunny days that looks beautiful as long as you're sitting indoors, but it's actually windy and freezing, and no matter how much she digs, she can't find a hair elastic in her backpack. It's ridiculous; she is always, always prepared for any contingency. She finds band-aids and eye drops and clear nail polish and an eyeliner pencil she doesn't even remember buying (she generally uses powder liner and a brush). Not a single hair elastic. She does the best she can with the three bobby pins she does find, but the wind still whips her hair around annoyingly as she walks across campus. It nearly drives her to distraction, not to mention the fact that she's freezing.

She takes a long, hot shower when she gets back to her apartment, taking her time standing under the soothing spray. (Bless the never ending hot water supply in this place.) She blow dries her hair out straight, applies her makeup carefully, and dresses in jeans and a gray thermal shirt layered over a white tank top, a vast improvement over the yoga pants and sweatshirt she dashed to class in that morning. It doesn't matter that she doesn't have anywhere else she needs to be today; being pulled together always makes her feel better.

It doesn't work quite as well as she thinks it should.

She warms some soup for lunch, not because she's hungry, but because it's after one and she hasn't eaten anything today. Her appetite has been off lately. She prints the notes for tomorrow's class from the professor's website and attempts to read over them as she eats, but that only lasts a few minutes before she tosses them aside with a frustrated sigh.

God, she feels like she's going to jump out of her skin.

She's been fighting the urge to think about Allie all day, and she decides that it's ridiculous. What better day to remember someone than on her birthday? Last year, Rachel took Allie to a little bakery downtown for a cupcake, lighting one of the candles the owners kept on the counter for just such occasions and singing "Happy Birthday" as obnoxiously as possible. It was silly and simple, but it was the middle of the week and it wasn't as if they were best friends.

And that's precisely why she feels so strangely about this. The only reason Allie had been anything beyond an acquaintance is because someone in the housing department - hell, probably a computer program - had decided that their names sounded good together or their social security numbers were compatible or whatever silly, arbitrary system that was in place was satisfied. It isn't like it was Santana or Tina or Kurt. (Heaven forbid - not that she hasn't driven herself half-crazy considering how awful that would have been.) Most of the time, she doesn't think about Allie. There was a burst of nostalgia when school first started, but since then, Rachel has been quite firmly entrenched in her own selfish bubble.

It's just this stupid, stupid day, and her stupid, racing, traitorous brain.

(She refuses to let herself think about the fact that this has become a recurring theme in her life over the last few weeks, preferring instead to focus on today's particular significance.)

She's standing in the kitchen, putting away her leftovers, when she decides that she just can't be here any more. She needs to get out and drive, just go out and lose herself in singing along with the radio and the repetitive movements involved in driving. So she shrugs on her coat, grabs her purse, and heads out.

There's a freedom in driving that she's always appreciated, though she doesn't usually indulge in the activity beyond what's necessary due to its environmental impact. Today she loses herself in it, first winding her way through the streets of the little college town, and then heading out on the highway, driving without a destination. Rachel has always been a multi-tasker, rarely doing only one thing at a time simply because doing more helped to keep her racing mind occupied. Driving, however, seems to take enough of her attention, even if she isn't entirely aware of it, to keep her from feeling like her thoughts are running away from her.

It isn't until well past the halfway point that she realizes where she's been heading, and when she does, she actually laughs out loud. She's moving towards Columbus at sixty-five miles per hour and has been for well over an hour.

She doesn't even lie to herself and pretend that her intention (however unintentional) is to see anyone besides Noah, despite the fact that there are at least a dozen other people she knows well in Columbus, not to mention Quinn and Tina. But Noah was the one who was there for her this summer, and he's the only one who was able to talk to her about things without making her feel like she was in some depressing, quasi-intellectual young adult novel. And yes, he hurt her, but it isn't as if he technically did anything wrong. What right does she have to cut him out?

Maybe it isn't so much that she thinks she doesn't have the right to cut him out. Maybe it's just that she misses him too much to care about the reason so much any more.

She's never been to his apartment, but she has his address and a GPS application on her phone, so she lets the technology guide her and tries to ignore the jumpiness in her stomach. This anxiety is different than the restlessness that brought her here, and she thinks this may be the most ridiculous day she's had in quite some time. She feels like she's gripping the steering wheel too tightly, and the seat belt, which she's always found comforting and reassuring, seems to be strangling her.

Her breath catches in her throat when she gets to his apartment complex and sees his truck in the parking lot, and she knows that she isn't only insane, she also has terrible manners to show up unannounced at someone's home like this. And then she pushes that thought aside, re-buttons her coat, and walks inside with her purse strap hitched high on her shoulder.

Puck's actually sitting at his desk editing a history paper when he hears the knock on the door, and even though he knows Adam's in the kitchen, he calls out, "Not it!" He's flipping through his research, double checking a page number for a parenthetical citation (yeah, he knows how to write a term paper), when he hears her voice and thinks he must be losing his shit.

"Is Puck here?"

He's hallucinating, obviously, because that sounded like Rachel, and he hasn't heard anything from her in weeks. It's probably because he drank two of those weird five-hour energy things this morning after class, so he ignores it and goes back to his notes. This paper has to be emailed to his professor by noon tomorrow, and he's actually learned his lesson about trying to turn in big assignments five minutes before they're due. There was a thing last year with a time stamp and a file extension and it was a whole giant mess of bullshit that he really doesn't want to deal with ever again.

"Noah?"

He turns slowly in his chair to face the doorway. Rachel is standing there, worrying her lower lip with her teeth and looking at him with something in her eyes that he doesn't have a word for. He just blinks at her for a moment, taking her in, dark hair and long lashes and pink cheeks. She looks nervous and sad and so fucking beautiful that he hates himself for what he did weeks ago that made her stop talking to him.

"What-" He cuts himself off, standing and shifting uncomfortably. "What are you doing here?"

She lets out a little laugh and shrugs her shoulders. "I'm not sure," she answers, her voice sounding just a bit hoarse. "I decided to go for a drive, to clear my head, and I wound up here."

"Rachel." He hasn't said her name since the last time they talked on the phone. He refuses to talk about her with any of their friends. (Which means that while he's still talking to the guys, he's ignoring most of the girls pretty seriously since none of them can leave well enough alone.)

He watches as she swallows hard and steps into the room instead of hovering in the doorway, pushing the door closed gently behind her. "It's Allie's birthday," she says softly.

Sure it is. He ignores the sting that goes through his chest when he realizes that her reason for being here doesn't have much to do with him, nothing really, nodding slowly as he watches her eyes. And why would she be here for him? He fucked it up.

She's plucking at one of the buttons on her coat when she meets his eyes again. "I miss you."

"Rach."

"It hurt," she says, speaking before he can really even wrap his mind around what she's said. "It wasn't supposed to."

"It didn't-"

"You don't have to explain anything to me," she interrupts. "Really. You didn't do anything wrong."

He thinks she's full of shit, because it sure as fuck felt like he did something wrong. It felt like it was wrong before he even before she found out, and isn't that how you know for sure? When you feel bad before you've even realized that you got caught? And yeah, he thinks she's full of shit, but he really, really wants to know where she's going with this, so he bites down on one side of his tongue and watches her take a few deep, slow breaths.

"Can we just...be what we were? Pretend that this never happened?"

He looks at her incredulously. "Are you serious?"

"Please," she says, her voice just louder than a whisper. "I know there are things we should talk about, but for now, can we just pretend?"

She's standing in front of him, eyes shiny with unshed tears, and he can't decide if he loves her or hates her. Honestly. It's completely stupid. He just _wants_ her so much, but he wants more than what he had. Fuck, he thinks he could fall in love with this girl. If he can't have all of her, he isn't sure that he wants any of her. He doesn't know if he can stand it any more.

But he has no idea how to tell her any of that, no clue where to even start, and he hears her breath hitch the way it always does right before she starts crying. He's nodding at her, an almost involuntary reaction that he doesn't regret a single bit when he sees her entire body relax. She closes the space between them and presses her face to his chest when he wraps his arms around her, purse and all, the rhythm of her breathing stuttered as she cries into his black tee shirt.

Honest to god, he can't let himself really think while she's there like that, because if he thinks too much he's going to have questions that he needs answers to, and he can't ask when she's obviously messed up over shit. He just can't, no matter how much he wants to know, so he focuses on the way her wool coat feels under his hands as he rubs her back gently.

She pulls away after just a couple of minutes, wiping her eyes carefully with the pads of her fingers and looking up at him almost sheepishly.

He lets out a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. "I don't know know what you want from me right now, Rachel," he tells her honestly. It makes him feel like kind of a jerk, but it's the truth and she's one of the few people he doesn't ever really want to to lie to.

"Can we just lay together?" she ask after a moment. He can't say no to her. Fuck, he wants to, because it feels like a terrible idea to stay this close to her, but he can't.

"Yeah. Take off your coat," he tells her, flicking one of the buttons with his fingernail and smiling a tiny bit. When she does as he says, he turns back to his desk, saving his paper and turning off the computer, and when he looks at her again she's stepping out of her little flat shoes and glancing around his room nervously. "C'mere." He sits on the bed, sliding so he's lying back against the pillows, and she follows, curling into his side the way she's only done a handful of times before. "You wanna talk about it?"

"No." The hand she has resting on his chest curls into a little fist. "Not yet."

"All right."

It doesn't take too long for her breathing to even out, and when he's sure she's asleep, he runs his fingers gently through her hair. She's warm all pressed up against him, and she smells like clean perfume and shampoo and a bit of fabric softener, and it's just so _Rachel_ that he can barely stand it, really. Because when she wakes up in a while and remembers that he's a fuck up who hurt her, she's going to leave, and it's going to be even harder now that he's had this little bit of her.

He screwed it up. They had a good thing going, and he ruined it. The thing is, since she's been avoiding him, it's kind of put things in perspective, and he's realized that he doesn't want her if he can't have all of her. It's fucked, because he should want to have whatever piece of her he can. Fuck that, he should be thrilled to have had this sort of thing going on with someone as hot as Rachel. It just isn't enough any more, so he'd kind of resigned himself to just not having her at all.

He could fall asleep with her, lying like this, but he won't. He won't.

* * *

When her eyes blink open, the room is nearly dark, lit only by the lamp on Noah's bedside table. She doesn't know how long she's been asleep, though sleep certainly wasn't her intention. Then again, she isn't sure exactly what she intended when she came here, considering she didn't intend to come here at all, so perhaps she's wrong.

She's still lying with Noah, her head pillowed on his arm and one of her legs hitched up a little so her knee is resting on his thigh. Her bare feet are cold, but the rest of her is comfortable in a way she hasn't been in a while. Considering that she sleeps alone every night, it's absurd how good it feels to sleep next to him. It isn't the first time she's thought that, and she doesn't want to consider what it means. Instead, she just takes a breath and tilts her head a little so she can look at him, his eyes open and trained on a book he has in his hand. "What are you reading?"

"_Freakonomics_. For class." He closes it and lays it on the bed next to him. "Feel better?"

She nods, pushing herself up and running a hand through her hair. "I guess I didn't realize how tired I was." She catches sight of the clock on his bedside table. "It's after seven," she says, surprised.

"Yeah." He sits up, looking at her for a moment before he sighs. "Rachel, you gotta talk to me," he says, and she swallows hard. "You haven't talked to me for weeks, and then you show up here and fall asleep in my bed."

She startles herself when she corrects him in her head: _In your arms_.

"I get that you're upset about Allie," he goes on, "but I don't understand why you're here."

She wants to tell him it's nothing, to get up and put on her shoes and coat and dash out of the apartment so he can't look at her like this any more, like he wants to figure her out but he just doesn't understand. Instead, she really thinks about his question; she thinks she owes it to him. He's watching her carefully, his face shadowed because the only light in the room is coming from behind him.

She's been blaming her melancholy on thinking about her dead friend as her birthday neared, but she's realizing that it's all been a lie. Apparently she can't lie to anyone else, since everyone likes to tell her how awful she is, but she's excellent at lying to herself.

She doesn't even like to admit to herself how much she's thought about him in the last few weeks. She's thought about the almost-fight they had at the end of summer and how it was the first time she'd realized that they were something more than friends having sex. She's thought about how he'd been faithful to her without being asked for months, including the time that they were apart at school. She's thought about the countless conversations they've had, trivial and more, and how she's never been able to talk to someone exactly like this. She's thought about how amazing they are together physically, and, god help her, she's thought about how much she misses that. How much she misses him.

He hurt her, and that's supposed to make her want to stay away from him, but she just misses him too much.

"It isn't Allie," she finally says. Her voice isn't as strong as it normally is, but she keeps going. "I think her birthday is the catalyst, but this isn't about her. It's about you...and me. I miss you," she admits, watching his eyes. She doesn't understand why she can't read him right now when usually it's so easy for her. "I just...god, Noah, I miss you."

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, and she's so afraid that it's slipping away from her that it makes her stomach ache. "Noah," she whispers, and she hates herself for the next thing that comes out of her mouth. "Do you miss me?"

It's unfair. It's almost stupid, because she's the one who wouldn't talk to him when he called. She's been avoiding him because she thought that avoiding him would hurt less than anything else, and she's never been so wrong before. (And she has been very, very wrong about things in her past.) Not having him in her life hurts more than this thing he did that wasn't actually wrong.

Any other time she might think the incredulous look on his face was funny, but not now. "Are you stupid?" he asks, voice harsh. "Fuck, Rachel. Yes, I miss you."

Her heart leaps into her throat, and her brain absolutely shuts down, because she's kissing him and even though she knows that she's the one who initiated it, she doesn't remember moving toward him or making the decision to do it. It doesn't matter, really, because it feels _so good_.

She straddles his thighs as she pushes her tongue past his lips, moaning when she feels his hand splay over the small of her back, pulling her against his chest, because the feeling of him pulling her closer is just so incredible. Being close to him is always good, but this, after the way she's felt over the past few weeks, is even better. It feels right.

Then he tears his lips from hers, and she's so afraid that he's going to tell her to stop that she doesn't open her eyes until he tells her to. "I'm sorry," he tells her seriously, his hand curling around the back of her neck beneath her hair. "I'm so sorry."

She brushes her thumb over his cheekbone. "It's okay," she promises, and she means it. If they had been in a relationship, she probably wouldn't have been able to forgive them, but that isn't what this is. Of course, maybe it wouldn't matter at all.

He leans forward and kisses her so gently that it steals the breath from her lungs, his hand sliding up under her shirt at the small of her back and smoothing lightly over her bare skin. She thought that they'd kissed every way possible before today, but this is different than ever before somehow, slow and gentle, and though she would usually be impatient for what comes next, she's content to just kiss him. She pushes herself close to him, threading her fingers through his hair and feeling the tension drain out of her body.

She whimpers when he pulls back and murmurs her name. "Let's get dinner."

She gapes at him. "What?"

"Your stomach was growling in your sleep," he tells her with a little grin. "And I'm starving."

"But..." Her protests die on her lips when he puts his hands on her hips and lifts her off his lap. Then he's reaching for his phone and asking if she wants veggie stir fry or the one with tofu, and she has to bite her tongue to keep from saying that what she wants is him.

They're sitting on the couch, talking about everything but what they should be talking about after they've eaten dinner. Sports highlights are playing on the television, and the music Noah's roommate is listening to is seeping under his closed door. His phone rings, and he glances at it before dropping it back on the coffee table. "Mike Chang," he explains even though she hasn't asked.

"Do you think you could keep this little visit quiet?" she asks. "If Quinn or Tina find out that I was in the city and didn't see them, I'll never hear the end of it." Not to mention the arguments she thinks she'll have when they find out that she saw Noah instead of seeing them. That she saw Noah at all.

He nods. "When is your class tomorrow?"

"Eleven," she answers, even though she knows he already knows the answer. Just like she knows that he has a class at noon tomorrow. "I'm skipping it." He just blinks at her, and she wonders when, exactly, she made that decision and why she felt like she should tell him. She's only ever missed classes because she was sick, and while she understands college students' habit of skipping classes simply because they can and they want to, she's never felt the urge until now.

"It's getting late, Rach." She raises her eyebrows; it's not even eleven yet, so it's hardly late, particularly by his standards. "For a two-hour drive, I mean."

She looks at the television, blinking just twice against the sting in her eyes. He's right, of course, and she should have left earlier. She shouldn't have come here at all.

"You should stay." She looks over at him, just sitting there with his feet propped up on the coffee table. "If you want."

* * *

He wakes up in the middle of the night and realizes that his hand is on Rachel's bare thigh beneath the covers. She's asleep on the left side of his bed wearing one of his Ohio State tee shirts, breathing deeply and just _being there_.

He rolls away from her to lie flat on his back, staring up at the white ceiling in the darkness.

He wants to hate her for jerking him around this way. Part of him does. But the thing is, he realized a long time ago that Rachel was the kind of girl he could fall in love with. Whether he likes it or not.

* * *

She wakes up the next morning when she hears the shower running. Noah is still lying on his back next to her, his breathing slow and even as he sleeps. He's wearing a shirt, which she knows he only did because she's here; it hurts a little, irrationally, because it's his way of holding her at arm's length. Now that she's awake, she notices how dry her throat is, a direct result, she's sure, of all the sodium in the Chinese food they had for dinner. She slips out of his bed and goes into the kitchen, closing the bedroom door gently behind her. She ignores the enticing scent of coffee (though she sees the carafe is empty) to open a cabinet in search of a glass. She's so thirsty.

"You really shouldn't jerk him around like this."

She jumps, completely startled by the voice behind her, and drops the plastic cup she's holding. It clatters on the counter as she turns to see Adam standing there. He's taller than Noah and watching her with dark, serious eyes. "Excuse me?"

"You can't shut him out and then show up here like this," he says flatly, leaning against the kitchen counter. "He's been all fucked up over you for weeks. This," he says, gesturing towards her, "is bullshit."

She can't remember the last time she was as uncomfortable as she is now now, standing here in Noah's tee shirt and her panties and listening to his roommate tell her that she's doing something wrong by being here. Doing something _to_ Noah by being here.

"I don't really think it's any of your business," she says after a moment.

"I have to live with his mopey ass," Adam counters. "You either need to forgive him or tell him to fuck off."

She doesn't say anything as he turns and walks away, and she's essentially frozen in place until she hears Adam's bedroom door close.

She thinks about his words as she fills her cup with water from the tap. She's already forgiven him, she thinks, though she genuinely doesn't believe that he did anything wrong. If she's being honest with herself, which she hasn't done much of lately, the way she's been avoiding him has little to do with Noah himself, but rather with herself and how she feels about him and their whole situation.

Back when they started this, they both agreed to keep it simple: just sex. They're friends who sleep together, which means they don't have to feel guilty for anything or live up to one another's expectations. And yes, their arrangement did bring them closer together as friends. He was wonderful to her this summer when she was dealing with her grief over Allie's death, and beyond that, they realized that they could have fun together without getting naked. He's become one of her closest friends, possibly her best friend. She isn't sure exactly when that happened.

It was startling to realize that it hurt when she found out that he'd been with someone else. It's easy to admit that she cares about him. She realized back in August that it was more than just sex. What's harder to admit is that it might be more than just caring about him.

Maybe if she knew how he felt about her, how he really felt, it would make it easier to understand her own twisted up emotions.

And maybe she should stop being so cautious, so afraid, and just admit to herself that what she really wants is to be with him.

She swears her heart skips a beat when she lets herself think it, and she's glad that she's not still drinking water because she might have choked on it. But she thinks it might be the truth. She thinks she might want more than what they already have (or had, before this). God, they've been accused of having feelings for each other for ages, and they admitted the truth of those feelings, however vague they might have been, to one another. The only thing keeping them from being in a relationship is their failure to just admit that, really, they've been in a relationship all along.

He wakes up to her lips on his neck and her voice in his ear murmuring his name. It's his game, and she's totally stealing it, but it's fucking hot and he likes it. His eyes are still half-closed when he rolls them, pressing her back into the mattress with one hand on her hip. She's smiling when he looks at her, her hair messy and fanned out on his pillows. "Hi."

"Hi," she giggles, leaning her head up to nip at his jaw before she whispers his name. He traces his thumb over her hipbone, and her eyes fall closed a little even though it's through her shirt. "I talked to Adam this morning."

He doesn't know why the fuck she's bringing up another dude in bed, even if it is his roommate. He's barely awake, but that's not cool, and he looks at her pointedly to let her know that he doesn't appreciate it.

"Don't," she says, which confuses him. "He made me realize something."

Puck's definitely awake now, and remembering that it's been weeks since he's had her because he fucked up and she's hurt or whatever. (It's not whatever, not at all, but he doesn't really want to think about it too much now.) He tries to move away from her a little, since he's only on top of her because he was half-asleep, but she's got one hand on the back of his neck and the other curled around his bicep keeping him in place. Even still, he stops moving his hand and just watches her, waits to see what she's going to say.

"Do you want to be with me?"

He knows that he blinks at her about six times, and she looks completely nervous. He can't even remember the last time he saw her nervous, and the fact that she's looking at him like that when he's, you know, in between her legs, is all sorts of fucked up, not to mention that fucking question. Jesus.

How is he supposed to answer that? Of course he wants to be with her; he's wanted to be with her for what feels like forever. (Her dramatics are rubbing off on him, obviously.) But they've been doing this sex thing for a while and this feels like a fucking trap.

She bites her bottom lip and closes her eyes for a second, then looks up at him through her lashes. "I want to be with you."

"What?" he asks stupidly.

Her fingers feather through the hair at the nape of his neck. "I want to be with you," she repeats quietly. "I want us to be together. More than friends having sex." She swallows thickly and takes a little breath. "Do you want to be with me?"

"Rachel."

"I don't want to pretend that it doesn't mean anything any more," she whispers, her fingers toying with the hair at the nape of his neck though she isn't quite meeting his eyes. "I want to be with you." It's the third time she's said it, and it's like she thinks that maybe he'll believe it if she repeats herself over and over again. (It might just work.)

He lets out a breath and just looks at her, trying to figure out if she's serious or if this is the cruelest joke ever. She's taking shallow little breaths, and he can tell that she's on the verge of tears. He cannot, absolutely cannot watch her cry again. "Don't, Rachel," he orders, his voice a little more gruff than he intends, and she lets out this little gasp and presses her lips together.

"I mean it," she says after a moment, her voice sounding a little choked. "I _want_ you. Not sex, you."

He has to close his eyes, because he can't look at her when she's saying shit like that, the same thing he's wanted to say to her for months. "Stop it." It's going to fucking suck when she pulls the rug out from under him on this one.

She says his name, then repeats it louder so he'll open his eyes and look at her. "I want to be with you," she tells him seriously, and for a girl who has so many words, it's fucked that she's repeating the exact same phrase over and over. "It hurt my feelings that you were with someone else, and that's how I know for sure. If it was just sex, it wouldn't have hurt," she explains simply. So simply that he believes it. Rachel can't lie for shit, and part of her problem is that her stories are always too elaborate, too obviously well-thought out. But this - it's almost easy. It would be easy if he didn't know better.

She's legitimately crying when she finishes that little speech, tears slipping down her cheeks and leaving little trails on her skin. He notices - of course he does, he hates to see her cry - but he doesn't care, finally closing the space between them to lean down and kiss her gently. She gasps against his lips and clutches at his arm like she thinks he's going to pull away and leave her.

She's fucking insane, because now that he has her, there's no way he's letting her go.

Part of him wants to kiss her hard, deep and desperate and just take as much of her as he can. Instead, he holds himself back and gives her what he thinks she needs, those soft, gentle, almost teasing little kisses that he's only ever tolerated for her. Even though he kissed her yesterday, it feels like it's been forever, because those kisses were stolen and these aren't. These are more. These kisses are going somewhere.

These kisses mean that she's his.

That thought makes him half-crazy, and she's almost whimpering when he pulls away to tug his shirt over his head before he trails his lips over her cheek and jaw, down to a spot behind her ear that makes her breath catch when he sucks it, just gently at first, and then harder, deliberately making a mark. She'll be pissed later; she says hickies are trashy and she's always pulled away before he could manage to give her one that would show when she was fully clothed. (Though that isn't to say he's never marked her at all.)

She gasps his name, then both of her hands come to his shoulders and she pushes, hard. Even though she can't physically move him that way, he pulls back. Her eyes are still all shiny, and her cheeks are a little pink. He knows her, understands her, so he knows what she wants and says, "I want to be with you." There are a million things he could say. He's wanted her for over a year. Fuck, maybe he's wanted her since that very first time they dated four years ago, when he swallowed his pride and sang her his version of a love song. He's wanted her every time she wore her hair in a messy braid over her shoulder this summer, when he watched her laugh after one too many drinks, when she thanked him after phone sex even though she'd gotten off on her own fingers.

She lets out a sound that he's never heard her make before, and it would probably freak him out if she wasn't kissing him like her life depends on it, her fingers clutching at his shoulder blade and her breath coming out in little gasps. As much as he likes kissing her - and he really, really does - it's just not cutting it. He pushes his hands up under the shirt she's wearing, skimming his fingers over her ribs and the sides of her breasts before pulling away from her lips long enough to tug the fabric over her head. He takes a second to look at her, lain out on his pillows in little purple boyshort panties with messy hair and dark (now dry) eyes. "Fuck, you're gorgeous, baby."

He's making her crazy already, and when he calls her baby she thinks she might lose her mind. He only ever calls her that when they're like this, in bed (or at least talking about it) or on their way, and she hasn't heard it since he visited her all those weeks ago. She loves it in spite of herself, and when her head has been clearer than it is now, she's considered that its effect on her is nearly Pavlovian. Now, however, she just whimpers against his lips and bring her hands to the waistband of the sweats her wore to bed, pushing them and his boxers down as far as she can with her hands.

"God, I missed this." He's somehow managing to kick off his pants and drag his tongue from her collarbone down to nipple, and she neither understands nor cares. "Missed you," he mumbles against her skin.

His fingers slip under the edge of her panties at her hip. "Don't tease me," she pleads, shifting her hips against him.

He groans against her lips because the only thing between them is the cotton of her little boyshorts, and she's working really hard to make him lose his shit right now, which he totally doesn't appreciate. He's not going to pretend that he wants to draw this out, because he knows that he can't and she doesn't want him to, but he refuses to let it be less than either of them deserves.

He uses both hands to pull her panties off her hips, moving away from her just enough to get them down her legs and drop them to the floor next to the bed, and she bites down on his bottom lip just gently when he brushes his fingers against her. "_Noah_." She's soaked, and her thigh twitches even though he's barely touching her.

As much as he just wants to spread her legs and slide into her, he remembers what it was like the last time they hadn't been together for a while, and even though they fit together (sometimes better than he thought two people could), she's little and he's not, and time apart just makes the difference between them more pronounced. With that in mind, he pushes two fingers inside her, curling them the way he knows makes her a little liquidy. He can't help laughing against her lips a little when she starts rolling her hips, almost riding his hand.

"Noah, baby, _please_."

Jesus fuck. Apparently those are magic words. Maybe it's just because she's literally never called him baby before, even joking around, but he needs to be inside her right fucking now. He fumbles in the nightstand for a condom, swearing when he drops it on her stomach in his rush to tear it open. She takes it from his fingers with steady hands, tearing it open and reaching between them to roll it over his length, stroking him just once before he knocks her hand away. He kisses her, nipping at her bottom lip, then pushes into her slowly, his forehead pressed against hers as her breath catches in her throat.

He stops when he bottoms out and just waits there, listening to her breathe and trying not to think about how fucking tight she is around him, fluttering a little as she gets used to him being there again. He doesn't wait long before she's moving her hips against his, moaning from the back of her throat when he pulls back and pushes into her again. "God, you feel good," she murmurs brokenly, her hand curving around the back of his neck and pulling him down to kiss him again.

He really wants to look at her, and that's easier to do when she's moving above him, so he snakes an arm around her waist and holds her against tight against him, rolling onto his back and swallowing her gasp when she sinks down on him, pushing him deeper. She sits up, and he questions whether or not this was a good idea when she pushes her hair back with one hand and then lets her fingers trail down over her neck and breast before placing both palms flat on his chest. "Goddamn, you're hot."

She smiles down at him, her eyes dark and sexy, then swivels her hips, making them both let out little groans. She looks fucking amazing riding him, her head thrown back and her chest flushed and her lips parted as she pushes herself towards the edge, and it's making him completely crazy. Like, he has to close his eyes because just the sight of her is going to make him lose it if he isn't careful, 'cause it's been way too long since he's seen her like this and, somehow, he seems to have forgotten how good it is.

"Touch me," she begs, and when he opens his eyes she's looking right at him. "Please."

He can tell she's close, and as much as he wants to come with her, he wants to watch her go over the edge first. Since both thoughts are selfish, he goes with the less selfish of the two and puts his thumb against her clit, rubbing her in a pattern he knows will do the trick.

It only takes a moment, and then she loses her rhythm so she's just sort of grinding into him when he feels her tighten around him, her body going taut as she breathes out his name.

_Fuck_.

He lets her ride it out as long as he can stand, then flips them again, pressing her back into the mattress and pushing her legs wide with his hands, snapping his hips so she moans his name. He leans down to nip at the flesh of her neck, catching her earlobe between his teeth gently. "So fucking hot, baby."

"Please," she gasps, meeting his thrusts and letting out a whimper when he hits that perfect place inside her.

He's close, closer than he thought, and he needs her to let go again with him, so he slips his hand between their bodies and rubs his fingers against her. She lets out this sound from the back of her throat, almost like a sob, but it's basically the best noise she makes since he knows it means she's going come _hard_ and soon. He thrusts into her a little roughly, and she makes the noise again and tightens around him, and he's chanting her name over and over when he comes.

She can't keep her eyes open when she falls apart, literally can't, because she doesn't have any control over her body whatsoever. God, she can barely even breathe, let alone open her eyes, and it's incredible.

She comes back to herself slowly, trying to catch her breath and wiggling her fingers and toes to be sure they're still there since she can't really feel them.

Puck waits until she opens her eyes to kiss her, sweet and slow, and he's grinning down at her when he pulls away. "You're amazing," he tells her. He means it, and it's not just about the sex.

She laughs, brushing sweat away from his temple with the back of her hand. "You are," she counters, leaning up to press her lips to his briefly. "So, so good."

She whines when he pulls out and moves away from her to throw away the condom. He thinks she looks amazing like that, all breathless and flushed and thoroughly _fucked_, and something flashes in her eyes when he tells her that. He lies next to her, pulling the blankets back over them before taking her hand and lacing their fingers together.

"You're my girl," he tells her quietly, looking over just in time to watch the smile spread across her face. God, she's cute.

She lifts their linked hands and kisses the back of his. "You're my boyfriend."

He never, ever thought he'd like hearing that so much. If she hadn't just completely worn him out, he'd totally take her again. Instead, he just tugs her closer, tucking her under his arm and falling asleep with her head on his chest.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Enormous thanks to everyone who read this story, and particularly those of you who took the time to review - it means the world to me, kittens!**

Winter break in college kicks high school winter break's ass one hundred percent just because it's twice as long, and then there's the rest of it: the no curfew and the catching up with friends who go to different schools and the complete lack of parental supervision since they're all technically "adults." When he goes back for the new semester, everything will be fresh and different (nothing from the fall lingering over his head like it did in high school), and his GPA last semester was pretty fucking good if he says so himself. And this year on break, he isn't just fucking around Lima with Finn and Mike and whoever.

He's fucking around Lima with his girlfriend. (Literally, if he plays his cards right.)

So they've only been doing this long-distance thing for a couple of months, but it's been going really well. Great, actually, because as much as nothing changed, everything changed. They talk more often, and about more stuff. All that emotional shit that sort of makes him crazy is weirdly easy to talk about with her, and he doesn't even feel weird about the fact that she isn't telling him anything new since she's been telling him just about everything from the beginning. It's just further proof that they've basically been in a relationship since June, even if it wasn't official or whatever, because ignoring the fact that he has any emotions beyond anger has sort of been his MO for years. But this is better, because there are things she's told him that he's pretty sure she doesn't tell anyone, pieces of herself that she's sharing with him and no one else.

Still, there are moments when she surprises him, like the night she straight-up drunk dialed him. (Does it count as a drunk dial when it's your girlfriend? He says yes, she says no, but whatever. He's totally counting it as a drunk dial.) She'd gone out with some friends after some big performance and they all got served at a local wine bar, and apparently wine goes straight to Rachel's head. She'd sworn to him on Barbra's life that she'd only had two glasses, which meant she wasn't lying, but she was somehow both giggly and quieter than usual when he called after she'd texted him to let him know that her sober driver dropped her at her apartment. They'd done the phone sex thing, and after she'd gotten off, she'd whispered to him that she was in love with his voice and then begged him (unnecessarily) to tell her that she's beautiful.

He did as she asked, then he almost - _almost _- slipped and told her that he loved her, too.

So, yeah. He's been thinking about that.

* * *

The first night that most everyone is back in Lima (Kurt is staying in Chicago until just before Christmas, and Sam and Quinn have decided to spend their first holiday alone together in Columbus, which Rachel thinks is sweet), they all end up gathering for an impromptu party at Mercedes' place. The house is elaborately decorated, so the mood is particularly festive, even though they're all drinking cheap beer and screwdrivers after someone had looked up the recipe for eggnog and they'd all realized just how disgusting the stuff is. Everyone's kissing everyone else under the mistletoe, regardless of significant others, and when it starts snowing heavily, Tina and Finn, who were the designated drivers, decide that everyone is spending the night, like it or not, and stand in the kitchen knocking back vodka shots until they're caught up with everyone else.

It feels like summer all over again, and Rachel thinks it's pretty wonderful. She had more fun this summer than she can ever remember having (and she knows now that it was mostly due to Noah's presence and her own decision to take life less seriously), and the thought that she might be able to recapture that feeling is ridiculously appealing.

She finds Noah and Santana sitting in the Jones' family room and chatting, and since she's drunk and feeling just a little needy, she wiggles herself between them on the couch. Noah is all pressed up against her right side, and Santana is on her left, gazing at her with a smug expression in her dark eyes, the corners of her mouth quirked up even though she isn't quite smiling.

"What's up, Rach?"

"I'm drunk," she announces, leaning into Noah with all her weight when he snorts. "Kiss me."

He obliges her, curving his fingers around the side of her neck and leaving a lingering kiss on her lips. He tastes like beer, and she thinks that maybe she should have gone that route instead of drinking as much vodka as she did. Vodka tends to make her hangovers worse, despite science that suggests the opposite should be true, but the orange juice is just so _easy_ to drink. He pulls away when she puts her hand on his thigh, her fingers digging into the inside of his leg a little, and shoots her a warning glance that makes her giggle. Yes, they spent the afternoon in his room taking advantage of the empty house (his mom was at work and Abby has school for another week and a half), but they're Rachel and Noah. They haven't seen each other since Thanksgiving, and their relationship was, initially, based around sex after all. She wants him again.

Part of her really, really doesn't want to have sex in her friend's house with all the rest of their friends in earshot. Yes, everyone knows that they're together and that they spent the summer having sex, but that doesn't mean that she wants them all to actually hear what that's like. The other part of her is drunk and impulsive and wants Noah so much that she shifts in her seat in an effort to relive some of the ache that's begun building between her thighs.

"I'm not sure if you two are hot or disgusting," Santana comments. Rachel looks over and sees the girl's eyes are even darker than usual.

"Hot," Noah answers, running his fingertips over the inside of Rachel's bare forearm in a way that really, really shouldn't feel as sexual as it does.

The conversation is cut short when Brittany comes into the room wearing nothing but a tight black pencil skirt and a red lace bra, brandishing a bottle of Skyy and insisting that they're having a shirtless Christmas and the trio on the couch is breaking the rules.

Rachel complies immediately, tugging her gray sweater over her head and revealing light pink bra that prompts Noah to lean over and whisper a suggestion in her ear that would make her blush if she wasn't drunk and lacking her natural inhibitions. As it is, it just makes her possibly inappropriate train of thought even harder to ignore.

She grabs his hand and pulls him upstairs, searching for an empty room with a door and a lock that's as far away from everyone down in the family areas of the house as possible. She's drunk, yes, but just sober enough to remember that she wants to keep her private life private. They end up naked in the room that used to belong to Mercedes' brother, and even though there's a big, empty bed _right there_, he takes her on top of the dresser, knocking a lamp to the carpet with a thud and making her moan. He's thrusting into her so hard that her head starts knocking back against the mirror, and when he cups his hand around the back of her skull to soften the blows, she has to lean forward to kiss him sweetly. It's difficult, since she can barely breathe and she's whimpering and it's a complete juxtaposition to the way he's driving into her, _fucking _her, but it's that sort of thing that reminds her that he really cares about her, that now they are more than friends who have great sex. She knows that, of course, because he's told her, but words aren't necessarily Noah's strong suit. He's always been better at showing than telling.

It's absurd that his keeping her from being concussed against a mirror during sex is affirmation of their relationship, but they were never really built to be conventional. Absurd works.

It isn't even midnight when they finish, and they're both still drunk, so after a quick stop in the bathroom to clean up, they go back downstairs and are met with half-sarcastic applause from their equally drunk friends. Rachel just laughs, bows like any good performer would, and pretends that she can't feel her cheeks flaming when Noah brushes his lips over her temple and takes her to the kitchen for another drink.

And no one can blame her for the shot she takes when Santana starts demanding details.

* * *

It turns out that winter break is just going to be random, unplanned party after random, unplanned party. He realizes it at the beginning of the second week they're home, when he's sitting on the floor with Tina and Brittany around the coffee table in Finn's basement playing Quarters with a bottle of Jack Daniels. It's the fourth time in two weeks that this has happened, including that first night at Mercedes', an afternoon in the Changs' media room, and a ridiculous thing at Santana's that was literally still going when the sun rose the next morning.

His break is going to be all about drinking with people he likes and having sex with his girl, and it's fucking phenomenal.

He very nearly chokes half to death on his drink when Brittany, out of nowhere, asks, "So, have you told Rachel you love her yet?"

Holy shit. Brittany's just watching him expectantly, sucking on the end of a candy cane and tapping a coin against the wood of the table. (And he's pretty sure that peppermint with JD has to be fucking awful, so he doesn't know what the hell she's doing with that.) Tina's patting him awkwardly on the back while he struggles to stop hacking, his lungs burning with the liquor he's pretty sure he just aspirated, her dark eyes darting between him and the blonde.

He decides to play stupid. It's Brittany, so she won't notice, right? "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Puck." Brittany's gaze is almost condescending, and it's fucking weird. The look and the fact that it's like she can tell he's trying to get out of having this conversation. "You've been dating since June." He doesn't bother to correct her; the girl doesn't care about the technicalities, and honestly, he's inclined to agree with her on this one. "It's time to tell her that you're in love with her."

"You're in love with Rachel?" Tina interjects. Her eyes are wide, still moving between him and Brittany. "And you told Brittany?"

"No!" Tina raises an eyebrow. "I mean, I didn't tell Brittany anything," he explains. He realizes too late that this is as good as admitting that he iis/i in love with Rachel, because Tina's other eyebrow shoots up as she stares at him. He's hoping the girl is drunk enough that she won't remember and of this conversation.

"I can just tell," Brittany supplies before he can say anything else, and he can tell she thinks she's being helpful. "He's been in love with her for, like, ever."

Tina smirks at him. "Is that so?"

"Of course."

"Stop," he orders, looking seriously at both of them. He doesn't really want to flat-out deny it, but: "It's none of your business."

Tina shrugs and resumes the game, and Brittany just looks at him a little sadly.

Fuck her for making him think about this again. The thing he and Rachel have going is good, and he's been trying really hard not to think about this. The way he sees it, if it took months of sex and hanging out and whatever for her to agree to be in a relationship with him (not to mention a massive, fucking ridiculous fight or falling out or whatever she would call it), he thinks she's probably going to freak out if he tells her he loves her just a couple months in. It's not necessarily that he doesn't feel it or that he doesn't want to say it. He just wants to let her set the pace of this thing, kind of like she has from the beginning. It still feels like he just got her, and he really doesn't want to fuck it up and push her away. You know, too much, too fast and all that.

Later, after he's gotten completely fucking shit-faced on JD, he's grateful that Rachel was playing DD tonight, because after she's made sure that he drank a glass of water and took two Advil, she lets him talk her into staying in his bed. The next morning, when he's in a world of hurt, she takes him to their drive-in and orders him a double cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake, and they spend the rest of the day hanging out and watching Scorsese mob movies.

She's basically the coolest chick ever, and when she's all snuggled up against him watching Leonardo DiCaprio get shot in the head, yeah, he loves her, even if he isn't going to say it out loud.

(And that weekend, after she pulls the same kind of shit at another of Santana's parties, he spends the day in her bed watching musicals. Tit for tat or whatever. He can compromise.)

* * *

They're in his bedroom one afternoon, just hanging out, mostly so Abby isn't alone in the house all day. She's twelve, which means she can be left alone for a little while, but Noah's mom still isn't thrilled about her spending entire days by herself, so she's in her bedroom with the door closed listening to Broadway whatever Rachel had loaded onto the girl's iPod and painting her nails with the hot pink polish she'd begged Rachel to let her borrow. Noah is sitting near the end of the bed, playing some racing video game that she thinks looks incredibly repetitive, and she's lying back against his pillows reading _The Virgin Suicides_. (Noah had seemed interested until she told him that the premise of the book really had nothing to do with sex.)

She likes this, just being here with him, and it's what she really misses being that their relationship is long-distance. Yes, having sex on a regular basis instead of having to wait every couple of weeks for one of them to be able to visit the other would be ideal, but she'd like it even more if they could just spend time together. She thinks that sort of time together plays a big part in developing closeness in a relationship, and she hates missing out on that. They aren't talking now, but it's an easy, comfortable silence, each of them just being content to be with the other, and she wishes they had more opportunities to do things like this.

He groans, and she looks up just in time to see some numbers flash across the screen, the time it took him to complete the course he was on, she assumes. Apparently it isn't good. Noah flops back, dropping the controller on the floor and flinging his arms out so one of them is across her legs. She marks her page when he starts running his hand over her foot, his fingers slipping up the hem of her jeans a little to brush over a spot on her ankle that feels better than she thinks it probably should.

"Noah," she says quietly after a few moments of this. "Your sister."

He turns his head to look at her, a dirty little grin on his lips. "Really, baby?"

She glares at him, but there really isn't any heat behind it, and she feels her resolve begin to crumble when he moves up the bed, nudges her legs apart with his knee, and lies on top of her, grabbing her book and setting it on the bedside table. He threads his fingers through her hair and brushes his lips against hers as he massages her scalp gently. He deepens the kiss slowly, and she lets him, sinking back into the pillows a little.

She pushes him away when his tongue brushes against her bottom lip, laughing when he looks down at her with his brow furrowed. "What are you doing?"

"Kissin' my girl," he answers, and when she giggles, he takes advantage and kisses her again, his tongue sliding against hers until she pushes him away again.

"Your sister is here, and the door is open," she reminds him, nodding her head towards his bedroom door.

He rolls his eyes. "She's seen kissing before, Rach. She's seen us kissing before," he reminds her. She fidgets underneath him, accidentally shifting so their hips are pressed together even more. (Quite a feat considering he's already lying between her legs.) "Rachel."

"Sorry." She can't decide if she's amused or frustrated. Probably both.

He let out a breath and brushes her bangs out of her eyes. "You just don't even know, do you?"

"What?"

She notices that his gray shirt makes his eyes look particularly green when he looks down at her and shakes his head a little. "You're beautiful," he murmurs, and even though she knows that isn't what he meant before, she likes hearing it. Every girl wants to be told she's beautiful, and while Noah is more likely to tell her she's hot, she knows that he means it when he says these things, and it makes her heartbeat a little crazy.

She traces the shell of his ear with her fingertips when he kisses her again, lets her fingers thread through the short hair at the nape of his neck when he makes a noise in the back of his throat and slips his tongue into her mouth. It isn't until she feels short of breath that she pulls away a little, but then he's skimming his lips along her jaw and his breath is hot against her ear, and she's still finding it difficult to breathe. "God, Noah." She puts her hand on his cheek and guides his lips back to hers, kissing him briefly before pulling away and waiting until he meets her eyes. "I love you," she tells him, her voice just barely above a whisper.

This isn't the first time she's thought the words, but it is the first time she's said them aloud. She's been at least a little bit in love with him for years, since back when she realized he was a boy who'd had his heart stepped on just as many times as she had, maybe more. And when she's really, truly honest with herself, she knows she spent the last six months falling head over heels for him, even if she was too oblivious to notice it at the time. Or maybe she was just fooling herself, working much too hard to hold him at a distance and not see what was right in front of her.

He blinks twice, then kisses her fiercely, nipping at her bottom lip with his teeth and reaching down with one hand to hitch her leg up a little higher. It presses him right against her center and makes her whimper into his mouth. His hand skims up her side, and he pushes up her shirt a little until his fingertips are brushing her side and giving her goosebumps. She breathes out his name when he pulls away and rests his forehead against hers. They're both breathing hard, and her heart is racing. "Shit, baby." His fingers are still moving against her ribs, just brushing the underside of her breast through her bra. "I love you, too."

She isn't sure that her heart has ever beat this fast or felt this large in her chest, but it's quite delicious. "Noah, you have to stop," she whispers, putting her hand on his over her sweater to still his fingers before it goes too far to stop. "We can't."

He swears, then stands up quickly, pulling her with him. "Abby!" he bellows, startling Rachel.

"What?" the girl answers from down the hall.

There's a glint in his eyes when he looks at Rachel. "We're going out for a while," he calls. "Don't light the house on fire and shit."

She's laughing when he half-drags her down the stairs and out to his truck, neither of them bothering with coats despite the fact that it's freezing, literally. He grabs her arm and hauls her across the bench seat when she tries to slide over to the passenger side, his fingers playing across the back of her neck as he speeds to her house, both of them shivering violently as they wait for the heater to warm up enough that they can turn it on without having icy air blown in their faces.

He repeats the words when they're in her bedroom and he's peeling her panties off her body, and again when she's above him, sliding down onto his length, her hands braced against his chest to keep her steady. She can feel his heart pounding against her right palm, and she's surprised at the shudder runs through her body when he meets her eyes hotly. She leans down and kisses him hard, mumbling the words against his lips as she swivels her hips and makes them both moan. (But she isn't quite sure if she's moaning because he feels good inside of her or because she loves the way it feel to have those words on her lips for him.)

After, when they're wrapped around each other in the bed they were on the first time they ever kissed, he asks, "How long?"

She turns her head so her lips brush against his chest. "A while," she murmurs. It's the truth, because she can't pinpoint the exact moment when it all shifted into place for her.

The hand he has resting on her hip pulls her a little closer. "Yeah."


End file.
